The Ten Most Dangerous Books

This is an interesting glimpse into the way hard-core conservatives think. What kinds of books would you expect find on a list of the most dangerous books of the 19th and 20th centuries - both the top ten most dangerous, and the "honourable mentions"? Well, a lot of the books are what you'd expect, if you stop to think about it.

I can understand the presence of The Communist Manifesto, Quotations from Chairman Mao and Das Kapital - Western conservatives tend to be capitalists and classists, and anything that posits an alternative way of organising economic and social systems is going to be alarming.

I can understand the presence of The Feminist Mystique and The Second Sex, too. More shaking up of the status quo, scary stuff for people who don't want to lose one iota of power.

And of course, Charles Darwin is doubly honoured, with both The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man identified as dangerous books. Ooh, evolution, that's really evil stuff.

It's a fascinating list. But what really caught my attention was the commentary for two of the books in the top ten. First, John Dewey's Democracy and Education. What, you may ask, was so dangerous about this book? Well, aside from the fact that Dewey was a "'progressive' philosopher and leading advocate for secular humanism" (watch out for humanists, they might try to get you to treat people like, well, people), Dewey also "encouraged the teaching of thinking 'skills'." Oh, what a dangerous thing it is, to teach people to think.

And then there's the interesting case of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. What did Nietzsche say that our fine conservative scholars found so dangerous? Why, he "argued that men are driven by an amoral “Will to Power,” and that superior men will sweep aside religiously inspired moral rules, which he deemed as artificial as any other moral rules, to craft whatever rules would help them dominate the world around them."

Can anyone think of some people who've been doing a lot of this sweeping aside of moral rules to make new ones that would help them dominate the world around them? Anyone?

I thought you could.