"Traditional values" groups come out with these lists from time to time, and usually they're jeered by librarians and the press. But I don't jeer them. If books matter, if ideas matter, then books that advocate bad ideas can indeed be classified dangerous. Maybe I'll compose my own list of dangerous books ... Although I think TV shows and commercials are much more dangerous than books. Buy enough crap and have enough supermodel sex and you'll be happy for ever and ever! ... But I digress ...
My disagreement with dangerous books lists are twofold: First, I usually disagree with what ideas are dangerous ("The Kinsey Report"? "The Feminine Mystique"? I don't think so. And I dearly love Michel Foucault, who made their list of honorable mentions.) Second, even if a book is dangerous, these lists usually get used by people who want books removed from library shelves. That's wrong, wrong, wrong. You combat dangerous ideas with better ideas, not with statist oppression.
On a final note, I find it truly ironic that John Maynard Keynes has made their list of dangerous books, since the current "conservative" administration seems to have utterly abandoned balanced-budget fiscal policies for raging deficits intended to stimulate economic growth. And if you don't believe it, read today's New York Times Magazine story by Stephen Metcalf on rising gold prices here. Pertinent excerpt:
A low-level panic about the debt crisis, and its possible effect on the American economy, is gathering strength. ''Our little post-bubble workout is not over, not by any stretch of the imagination,'' Stephen Roach, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley and himself a noted pessimist, told me recently by phone. Roach says he firmly believes that an adjustment is necessary and inevitable, and that when it comes, it will be very, very painful. From appearances, Warren Buffett, the savviest investor who ever lived, agrees. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, has placed a $21 billion bet against the U.S. dollar.I hope they're wrong; I fear they're not.
1 comment:
I should precede this post by emphasizing that these are most definitely the views only of myself and not of spoonreader, since we differ widely but politely on many political issues.
This is one of your most interesting posts yet! As a traditionalist (I might protest that I am not a conservative but a "nineteenth-century liberal")I find this list odd. For one thing, I don't see a definition of what they mean by "harmful." Do they mean these books are harmful because of their historical impact during the 19th and/or 20th centuries, or because the ideas in them are innately harmful, or because those books continue to be harmful today? (I would think not the last, since they do not include the 21st century.) It's rather simplistic to describe "The Origin of Species" as harmful in and of itself. Controversial and troubling for nineteenth-century Americans, yes. But the word "harmful" implies that it would be bettter if these books had never been written. I can heartily agree with that in the case of Mein Kampf, but not in most of the other cases. Ideas correct one another - the errors of capitalism can be exposed by communism, and vice versa. While I still believe that Christian capitalism is the best social system that we have in this imperfect world (meaning capitalism leavened by extensive private philanthropy and *some* of the socialist programs currently in place in America, like Medicare, limited Social Security, and limited aid to the poor) I believe that critique of injustice is necessary, and healthy in most cases.
The problem is that in our culture many now mindlessly echo any cry of injustice, without really thinking of whether it merits action. If we have to choose, for example, between focusing our time and dollars on damage attributed to American slavery from over a hundred years ago, or focusing our attention on *current* slavery in Third World countries, which is the more pressing injustice? Lots of people complaining about left-over problems from American slavery aren't too keen to discuss curent problems of international slavery (which they like to call "trafficking" to make it sound like it's something different from slavery). You see, if we start talking about the tremendous atrocities currently committed against female and child sex slaves by the tens of thousands in places like India, it starts to make complaints about problems still left from American slavery seem, well, petty. And that is not to say that American slavery was not *horrific,* but that with only a limited amount of time, resources, and public energy for solving world problems, perhaps we need to stop the navel-gazing and try to end suffering where it is currently *the worst.*
OK - so that apparent digression is simply my long-winded way of supporting the necessity of social critique like that contained in many of the "harmful" books, but also the necessity for balance and evaluation.
If you want to describe a book as harmful because of the way human beings have used it, then the Bible and the Koran should definitely make the list. The Bible would also make the list of the most beneficial books of the 19th and 20th century. I don't know enough about the Koran to say whether it could make a "beneficial" list. If you count its impact on individuals rather than its collective social impact, I'm sure it probably would.
Anyway, I think we might all agree that certain books are the most "important" books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - the evaluation of their social harmfulness or benefit is too complex to condense to a simple list. Perhaps a better list might be "the ten most harmful books I have read in my life" - meaning, harmful to me. In my case, that list would include Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, William Styron's Sophie's Choice, and perhaps some other things that may not have been harmful in and of themselves, but were at the time that I read them. Now an exchange of *those* lists would make for an interesting all-night conversation.
Thanks for the ideas, spoonreader! Can you tell I'm procrastinating? :-)
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