Dangerous Reading

**MrsNormanMaine**[$] · #1 06-02-2005, 11:12 AM

Found this while surfing today.

Some interesting choices. Sounds like pretty much everything that underlies 20th century society ended up with a vote or two. If they'd gone earlier, I wonder if Machiavelli and Sun-Tzu would have made the cut?

Most Dangerous Books of the 19th and 20th centuries

MNM !queen

rmthunter · #2 06-02-2005, 11:50 AM

Actually, given the bias of the judges, I don't see any surprises. I have a few candidates for the list, actually, but I doubt any of these "experts" have read them.

Actually, to characterize ideas as "dangerous," (and that, after all, is what books are -- ideas made tangible) implies that they should be controlled or suppressed. We all know where that leads.

Redlass · #3 06-02-2005, 12:50 PM

That is the key question, isn't it? Is dangerous bad?

I would say that reading in general is dangerous--and that's why everyone should do it.

Redlass · #4 06-02-2005, 12:52 PM

Oops! I just followed the link. They call them "harmful" books, not dangerous.

I guess they would consider that bad, then.

I find some of their choices rather hilarious. The Kinsey Report? Dangerous?

**MrsNormanMaine**[$] · #5 06-02-2005, 03:38 PM

But the Kinsey report more or less exploded the Victorian sexual/moral code in place until that time. Dangerous and harmful.

My favorite is the inclusion of John Dewey.

MNM !queen

rmthunter · #6 06-02-2005, 04:31 PM

"Harmful," even more than "dangerous," implies that they should be suppressed.

My candidate for Most Ironic is Das Kapital, since it gave a lot of impetus to the paradigm of the 20th century: economics. It's even shown up in the work of Edward O. Wilson and other population geneticists. It also happens to be the paradigm within which classical conservatism operates. They may disagree with his conclusions, but the paradigm remains.

Snicker.

realtraveller · #7 06-02-2005, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Redlass said

Oops! I just followed the link. They call them "harmful" books, not dangerous.

I guess they would consider that bad, then.

I find some of their choices rather hilarious. The Kinsey Report?
Dangerous?

The Kinsey report was harmful to the children who were molested by the pedophiles who reported back to Kinsey and whose 'work' was included in his report. Kinsey reported that children as young as 4 enjoyed their sexual encounters with older men.

erik_kosberg · #8 06-02-2005, 05:49 PM

John Stuart Mill?

What a strange list.

**amykhar** · #9 06-02-2005, 05:56 PM

Some very right-wing person wrote that list. Read what he says about Democracy in Education.

I'm a Republican. I'm pretty damn conservative. That list is ooky.

Amy

**MrsNormanMaine**[$] · #10 06-02-2005, 06:11 PM

John Maynard Keynes? Because he discovered that the free market isn't necessarily the solution to all economic problems? Or because he was a homosexual?

MNM !queen

erik_kosberg · #11 06-02-2005, 07:38 PM

Oh, that wacky Moonie rag. What will they think of next?

rmthunter · #12 06-03-2005, 06:12 AM

Quote:

realtraveller said

The Kinsey report was harmful to the children who were molested by the pedophiles who reported back to Kinsey and whose 'work' was included in his report. Kinsey reported that children as young as 4 enjoyed their sexual encounters with older men.

At least he reported on it. Without that, who's going to know the extent of the problem?

You left out the next part of the mantra: you're supposed to accuse him of being a pedophile himself.

**hadassahchana**[$] · #13 06-03-2005, 08:08 AM

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, The Communist Manifesto? For a book to be harmful, first, you have to be able to stay awake long enough to read it.

Many of #1's books for homeschooling are on that list. At the very least, some of these make for interesting discussions. Haven't these guys ever considered that it's better to know what people with whom you disagree are thinking?

I'd really like an article to go along with that list. I wonder if the intention was to create a list of books with which these people most strongly disagreed, or if 'most harmful' includes an element of wishing to remove those books from libraries and classrooms?

Cindy

poseidon · #14 06-03-2005, 09:02 AM

I'll agree with Cindy. About the only reason that I'd read many of the books on that list is because it would be cheaper than my copay for Ambien.

Redlass · #15 06-03-2005, 10:14 AM

Quote:

rmthunter said

At least he reported on it. Without that, who's going to know the extent of the problem?

You left out the next part of the mantra: you're supposed to accuse him of being a pedophile himself.

Exactly.

Reporting on and describing something does not mean agreeing with it. Telling people what existed and what was taking place was revolutionary in many ways. For the book to be harmful you would have to make the argument that the Kinsey Report caused a change in society to make child molestation more acceptable. I'd have to argue that the opposite has happened. If anything, children now have more protections than they did before and people are more inclined to believe them. Before the Kinsey report, children were often ignored as nasty liars.

poseidon · #16 06-03-2005, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Redlass said

If anything, children now have more protections than they did before and people are more inclined to believe them. Before the Kinsey report, children were often ignored as nasty liars.

I think it is probably like most other things, Bridgette, and that the pendulem has simply swung that way for now. There's already rumblings being heard that we've gone too far to protect kids (whereas I don't think we've gone far enough). The ones who have been typically screaming about the need to do things because, "even if it saves just one child, isn't it all worth it," are going to shock you...

realtraveller · #17 06-03-2005, 12:05 PM

Quote:

rmthunter said

At least he reported on it. Without that, who's going to know the extent of the problem?

You left out the next part of the mantra: you're supposed to accuse him of being a pedophile himself.

But he didn't report, where it would have done some good; to the police. With his knowledge and assent he allowed children to be raped. And by saying that the children 'got sexual pleasure' out of being raped, he justified the actions of the child rapists. Sounds like NAMBLA type propoganda.

Redlass · #18 06-03-2005, 12:29 PM

He was a scientist. Pleasure is not justification. Yes, they probably did have a particular physical response--our bodies are made that way. For good or ill, we describe that response as "pleasurable." So saying children got sexual pleasure is not saying that children enjoyed it or that it was justifiable.

To whom did he justify the actions of child rapists? Was there a single case in which a rapist was excused because the child had a physical "pleasure" response?

realtraveller · #19 06-03-2005, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Redlass said

He was a scientist.

This man, Kinsey, hired pedophiles to commit rape on up to 2,000 children. To say he was a scientist is to say Dr. Mengele was a medical doctor.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #20 06-03-2005, 01:04 PM

"hired pedophiles to commit rape" is a bit of a misstatement. More like "collected information from pedophiles who would have committed rape whether or not Kinsey ever spoke to them" is more accurate.

realtraveller · #21 06-03-2005, 01:18 PM

Quote:

mjfrombuffalo said

"hired pedophiles to commit rape" is a bit of a misstatement. More like "collected information from pedophiles who would have committed rape whether or not Kinsey ever spoke to them" is more accurate.

I'm not sure of that. My googling on this said that the pedophiles were hired, told what 'experiments' to do including tying down infants for fondling.

At worst, Kinsey is as much a criminal as the mother in White Plains (of the other thread). At best, he knew of repeated molestations and failed to report them. Then he and IU profited off the rapes by selling books. Seen in the best light (if that can be the word for it) he told pedophiles to go ahead and rape children and he would call it scientific research and write about it. If that isn't encouraging pedophilia, I don't know what is.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #22 06-03-2005, 01:25 PM

So (attempting to drag the thread back on topic) does all that, whatever parts might be true, make the Kinsey Report a dangerous book to read in 2005?

realtraveller · #23 06-03-2005, 05:55 PM

Quote:

mjfrombuffalo said

So (attempting to drag the thread back on topic) does all that, whatever parts might be true, make the Kinsey Report a dangerous book to read in 2005?

Would I ban it? No, I woudn't ban any book "Mein Kampf" or anything else on the list.

Would I buy it? No. To buy it would be to give money to an enterprise that let a pedophiliac continue to abuse children so that they could use it for their "research". And yes it all happened 50 years ago and the victims may all be dead but (unlike the Chicago-Wachovia) thread, some of Kinsey's co-workers are still alive and (as you can see from my quote in the other thread) have never apologized for what they did and seem to see nothing to apologize for. An attitude that I find reprehensible.