Harmful books {says Conservative site}:summaries wanted by me

[oscar111]

Another thread, by Eric J in Minn, alerted me to this great list.

TEN MOST HARMFUL BOOKS OF THE LAST TWO CENTURIES

conservatives hate these books. I found some of them to be classics of the LW - like J. Maynard Keynes' book and THE FEMMININE MYSTIQUE.

but i dont know what is in some of them, and request you experts to tutor me, please. I just dont have time for books. Really.

Ten to thirty-plus line summaries of the powerful ideas in each book are what us seminewbies need.

ten, IIRC, have bad summaries by the neocons, but the runner-ups do not.

especially want summaries of the books by these guys i never heard of:

Comte
BF Skinner
Fannon
Croly
Foucault

Well actually, i read one of Skinner's in college {Walden two} but know nothing of this book.
=================================
HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

[Wickerman]

1. Unbelievable

Some I can see, and if not agree with, I understand why they disapprove. However, in essence, they seem to have taken ANY book that disagrees with their little world view and disparaged it. M. Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa is an honorable mention? As is Rachel Carson's Silent Spring? :puke: Critical thinking is not a reasonable expectation if you are Conservative, huh? Oh, wait, they said that when they disparaged John Dewey.

I won't try to improve on thsi review of Skinner's BFD

http://www.bfskinner.org/BookDetail.asp?sku=4

[oscar111]

2. thanks for the bf skinner review!

I think some of their pick are pretty excessive. Like freud's book. Pretty tame book.

i think

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

is the term used nowadays by folks in the psych field to describe the RW tendency to ignore social structural influences on a patient. RW sees the patient as isolated chooser of actions... which is quite wrong.\

Is that the right term? F A E?

[oscar111]

4. wow, just read the bf skinnr review

and i can see how it is really really LW! No wonder they listed it LOL.

BTW, his book Walden Two was a great read.

PS what is the name of the recent school of psych thought, that sees economic insecurity as the prime cause of most mental troubles? Someone mentioned it ten years ago, now i forgot the term. Eco-ology?

[Maraya1969]

3. Just click on the LINKS they provide to Amazon.com!

I read some of these books in college. What a bunch of asses. Now I am convinced the fundamentalist Christians want to keep their followers uneducated.

[oscar111]

5. NO links to runner-ups. But thanks for the other links

thanks, the links for the top ten will be good for me to read. How did i miss links??? But i see no links for the many runnerups. still request summaries for them here.

again, thanks for pointing out the top ten's links.

[alpizzy]

6. First they burn books, then they burn people. n/t

[Iris]

7. Agreed. This is just a subtle way of "banning" books.

They're not really banning the books. I saw the editor of this mag/website on C-Span today and he encouraged people to read the books. But I have to go further - will this cause some parents to then go to local libraries and school boards and have them remove these books from the shelves because they are"dangerous."

This is just another way for the right to re-frame an argument - and in this case I think it's a subtle way to get people to censor themselves. One caller to C-Span even said, "People don't practice censorship; only the government can do that."

One book that did not make the honorable mention list was "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. The editor thought it should because it "elevates the working class" and puts "entrepreneurship and the producing class in a bad light."

Another honorable mention has had excerpts floated around on DU for some time "The Authoritarian Personality" which basically describes many Republicans I know. This personality type fits my idea of "conservative" to a "t" - never question authority, conform, conform, conform because if things aren't working out great for you it's simply because you have not been conforming properly.


Frankly, this scares the shit out of me and I think this should be posted in the General Discussion area.