News and views from the Yes, reading CAN harm you
Courtesy LISNews.com, I have learned about the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Selected by a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders, The Communist Manifesto tops the list, followed by Mein Kampf. Here's the critique of John Dewey's Democracy and Education, which comes in at Number 5:
John Dewey, who lived from 1859 until 1952, was a "progressive" philosopher and leading advocate for secular humanism in American life, who taught at the University of Chicago and at Columbia. He signed the Humanist Manifesto and rejected traditional religion and moral absolutes. In Democracy and Education, in pompous and opaque prose, he disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking "skills" instead. His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.Sheesh, so that's what's wrong with me.
4 Comments:
Ridiculous, that. Attacking Betty Friedan's character by noting her communist sympathies without addressing the effects of The Feminine Mystique.
Keynes was wrong about fine-tuning but recognized that the Great Depression was not just another Business Cycle. Ranking him with Mao is unfair.
Now, being of the historical perspective rather than the humanitarian, I think it's absurd to be talking about the power of these books. The works cited reflected larger historical trends. Kinsey, Marx, Mao, Carson, and all the authors cited did not act in a vacuum with absolute agency.
I do think that Carson's Silent Spring and Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed are useful to the extent that they point out the need for some government regulation, especially cost-effective measures like seat-belts.
Well, this list makes sense as long as you operate under the assumption that the word communist=evil and that capitalism is the best system ever created.
Really fits with the conservative view that anything that challanges what you want to believe should be ignored and shows a real ignorance of the content of the books and history.
Interesting also that it attributes to these books the power to drive historical events and ignores other factors. The Nazis would proabably have risen to power, even without Hitler's book, Leftists would still have overthrown the Czars without the Communist Manifesto, people would still have had sex without Kinsey's report.
they are only harmful because some idiots didn't think enough about them. Don't blame the books - blame the fathead readers.
This list makes me want to go out and read those books.
Post a Comment
<< Home