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Harmful Books ...

Nearly everywhere I look on the net, there's a response to Human Events' list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries," virtually all of them critical in some way. I'd want to step back from the list to ask a prior question, like "Is there such a thing as a harmful book?" Yes, I think there is. I can't think of any redeeming social value to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for example. It seems to me that it is fair to call it a "harmful book." So, apart from the general silliness of all such lists, I don't see anything particularly wrong with making such a list. I imagine that what unnerves many of us when we see conservatives compiling such a list is the fear that it is a prelude to book banning. We may fear that because we see conservatives as the party interested in social control and domination – as if we didn't wish to be in control. Frankly, I don't think Human Events is about to ban any of these books.

If this is only a list of "harmful books" and we agree that there are such things – if this is not a list of books to be banned – then our criticism of the list should be criticism of particular choices, not of the enterprise, itself. In the conversation at Easily Distracted, Jon Dresner and Matt Yglesias agreed that Chairman Mao's Little Red Book is misplaced on the list because it was symptomatic rather than causative of the horrors of Maoism. In the discussion at The Weblog, Adam Kotsko seems to agree. I'd say that we should grant the folks at Human Events some latitude to choose a representative title, when the more harmful tract is much less well known. And we have also to ask: "Harmful? In what way?" Probably no book by John Dewey would make my list of the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century; and, yet, I've never picked up a book by Dewey without wanting to throw it across the room. He has to be one of the worst influential American writers of both centuries. It isn't that his prose is dense with meaning. It's just dreadfully badly written.

One thing that pleasantly surprised me about Human Events list is its lack of consensus. With 15 judges and 1st place votes scoring 10, 2nd place scoring 9, etc., the maximum number of votes a book might have received was 150. The 1st place choice, a fairly obvious one from what we'd expect of Human Events, Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto scored only 74. 2nd place, Hitler's Mein Kampf, is not even close at 41 votes. Then, closely and, o.k., amusingly, grouped at 3rd through 5th, are Chairman Mao's Little Red Book of Quotations at 38, Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male at 37, and Dewey's Democracy and Education at 36.

I'm betting that there'd be even less consensus among the Cliopatriarchs about the ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries, but for the sake of argument, here's my list:

1) Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
2) V. I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done
3) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
4) Thomas Dixon, The Clansman
5) Sigmund Freud, The Basic Writings of ...
6) Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged
7) Ann Coulter, anything by ...
8) Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot's History of the United States
9) Thomas Woods, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
10) Jesse Helms, Here's Where I Stand: A Memoir

Update: In light of Alan Allport's suggestions, I am modfying my list of harmful books as follows:

1) Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
2) V. I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done
3) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
4) J. A. comte de Gobineau, Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races
5) Houston Stewart Chamberlain, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
6) Thomas Dixon, The Clansman
7) A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
8) Sigmund Freud, The Basic Writings of ...
9) Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged
10) Herbert Spencer, The Evolution of Society