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In addition to seconding Chris's remarks about Rand (whose conception of "self-interest" is by the way Aristotelean, not Hobbesian), I would also like to gripe about the inclusion of Thomas Woods' Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (on the first version of the list) and Herbert Spencer's Evolution of Society (on the second). I don't agree with everything in Tom's book (my version of libertarianism is more left-y than his) but on the whole it offers a welcome libertarian (not conservative) look at some aspects of American history that have been marginalised by the mainstream. What is the horrendous danger supposedly lurking within?
As for Herbert Spencer, one of history's greatest champions of peace, freedom, and toleration, his inclusion on this list strikes me as just another example of the ongoing defamation of Spencer which I have critiqued here, here, here, and passim. Including Spencer with the likes of Hitler is truly scandalous.
Incidentally, what is this book The Evolution of Society? I own every book Spencer wrote and he never published any book with that title. Does Luker mean The Principles of Sociology? And anyway, what on earth does he find harmful within?
I also find the inclusion of Freud bizarre; his theories are a mixture of truth and error, but he performed a useful service by opening up previously forbidden areas of discussion, and he paved the way for more salutary forms of psychoanalysis (e.g., Jung and Sartre).
As for Herbert Spencer, one of history's greatest champions of peace, freedom, and toleration, his inclusion on this list strikes me as just another example of the ongoing defamation of Spencer which I have critiqued here, here, here, and passim. Including Spencer with the likes of Hitler is truly scandalous.
Incidentally, what is this book The Evolution of Society? I own every book Spencer wrote and he never published any book with that title. Does Luker mean The Principles of Sociology? And anyway, what on earth does he find harmful within?
I also find the inclusion of Freud bizarre; his theories are a mixture of truth and error, but he performed a useful service by opening up previously forbidden areas of discussion, and he paved the way for more salutary forms of psychoanalysis (e.g., Jung and Sartre).
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62205)
by Ralph E. Luker on June 5, 2005 at 6:07 PM
by Ralph E. Luker on June 5, 2005 at 6:07 PM
Glad to have all the complaints pouring in from L & P. I didn't expect the list to sit well over there, but I thought there'd be _some_ sense of humor, particularly about the lower end of it. The complaints have all been so earnest. Lists are problemmatic. You're welcome to compose your own -- in fact, I invited that from the outset. Your appreciation of Woods' book strikes _me_ as bizarre -- but then Woods's Yankee-love of the Old South in these latter days also strikes me as bizarre.
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62210)
by Roderick T. Long on June 5, 2005 at 6:40 PM
by Roderick T. Long on June 5, 2005 at 6:40 PM
Re Woods: defending the constitutionality of secession hardly counts as a love of the Old South in all its aspects. (Personally I'm a curse-on-both-the-Union-and-the-Confederacy libertarian.)
Re sense of humor: being the constant target of smears and defamation for the past 350 years does tend to blunt the edge of our sense of humor, I'm afraid.
Re sense of humor: being the constant target of smears and defamation for the past 350 years does tend to blunt the edge of our sense of humor, I'm afraid.
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62212)
by Ralph E. Luker on June 5, 2005 at 6:44 PM
by Ralph E. Luker on June 5, 2005 at 6:44 PM
Check out Woods's League of the South connections. They are well known. 350 years? From whence do you date your oppression?
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62214)
by Roderick T. Long on June 5, 2005 at 6:56 PM
by Roderick T. Long on June 5, 2005 at 6:56 PM
As he has explained ad infinitum ad nauseam, Tom joined the League of the South back before he became a libertarian. Anyway, though I myself don't care much for the League of the South it is perfectly possible to be a member while despising not only slavery but the horribly socialistic government of the Confederacy. Why not judge Tom on what he's actually written?
Re date: I should have said 360 years -- dating from the Levellers, the first libertarian mass movement.
Re date: I should have said 360 years -- dating from the Levellers, the first libertarian mass movement.
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62254)
by Alan Allport on June 6, 2005 at 5:05 AM
by Alan Allport on June 6, 2005 at 5:05 AM
The screw-up over the Spencer title is entirely mine. In fact I can't now even remember where I got that erroneous name from. Attribute it to sheer ignorance. I can see that Spencer is a highly controversial addition to the list, and perhaps he doesn't fit well into a 'harmful books' categorization anyway, but I do think that much of the defense of him is beside the point. We're not really arguing about whether Spencer was a good man or whether his ideas, when properly understood, were good; we're arguing about whether their misapplication had harmful effects. I'd wager that Spencer's coining of the term the survival of the fittest has caused untold harm to mankind, even though the poor fellow never intended it to be so and (IIRC) its original application was in economics rather than biology or sociology.
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62290)
by Roderick T. Long on June 6, 2005 at 11:18 AM
by Roderick T. Long on June 6, 2005 at 11:18 AM
Well, if the misinterpretation of Spencer were an easy one to make, it might make sense to say that Spencer's books were indirectly harmful. But when Spencer loudly and repeatedly attacked the views which we now call "Social Darwinism," why call those views a "misapplication" of his ideas? The harm lies with those who first used Spencerian slogans to cloak a radically un-Spencerian social philosophy.
By analogy: Ward Churchill interprets the Ninth Amendment as authorising, even mandating, censorship. Suppose tis loony interpretation became widespread. Would it be fair to list the Ninth Amendment as one of the most dangerous texts because its misapplication had harmful effects?
By analogy: Ward Churchill interprets the Ninth Amendment as authorising, even mandating, censorship. Suppose tis loony interpretation became widespread. Would it be fair to list the Ninth Amendment as one of the most dangerous texts because its misapplication had harmful effects?
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62377)
by Charles Johnson on June 6, 2005 at 10:06 PM
by Charles Johnson on June 6, 2005 at 10:06 PM
Allport: "I can see that Spencer is a highly controversial addition to the list, and perhaps he doesn't fit well into a 'harmful books' categorization anyway, but I do think that much of the defense of him is beside the point. We're not really arguing about whether Spencer was a good man or whether his ideas, when properly understood, were good; we're arguing about whether their misapplication had harmful effects."
Well. This does, at the least, raise some broad methodological questions about this list and the discussion of the Human Events list that preceded it. (Yeah, I know, this is no doubt taking things too seriously. Oh well. It seems like the point of these lists was to provoke some discussion about books and history, not to mention the specific books named, so here we go.)
I take it that if we're talking about "harmful books," we're attributing the harm, in part, to the contents of the books themselves. But Spencer's views have been widely misunderstood. Does it make sense to attribute the harm that misunderstandings of his books caused to the books themselves? Even if those misunderstandings are clearly the fault of the reader (or cocktail-party conversationalist) rather than the fault of the author? (This isn't just about Spencer, either; it's clearly the case for Rand, for example, and possibly for Freud too.)
The point here is not to insist that you're doing something wrong if you say that you will count wilfully misunderstood books on the list. I want to say that you're probably doing something wrong if you do -- it seems that you're treating the books more as historical artefacts than as, well, books. But maybe it's not obviously wrong to do so. And if it is, there are tricky cases, such as Nietzsche in BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL -- who made an appearance on the Human Events list -- where the book has been gravely misunderstood, but the author seems to have intended that hasty readers would fail to understand.
The point here, rather, is that different answers to each of these questions could result in some drastically different lists. Imagine what different answers about interpretation might mean when it comes to the Bible or the Qu'ran, if you were to expand the list beyond the last couple centuries! So I'd be interested to know what Ralph (for one) was thinking about questions of interpretation and misinterpretation when he was considering which books to list as "harmful"; and I'd be interested to know if there was any one consistent answer to those questions that he was thinking of when he prepared the list.
Well. This does, at the least, raise some broad methodological questions about this list and the discussion of the Human Events list that preceded it. (Yeah, I know, this is no doubt taking things too seriously. Oh well. It seems like the point of these lists was to provoke some discussion about books and history, not to mention the specific books named, so here we go.)
I take it that if we're talking about "harmful books," we're attributing the harm, in part, to the contents of the books themselves. But Spencer's views have been widely misunderstood. Does it make sense to attribute the harm that misunderstandings of his books caused to the books themselves? Even if those misunderstandings are clearly the fault of the reader (or cocktail-party conversationalist) rather than the fault of the author? (This isn't just about Spencer, either; it's clearly the case for Rand, for example, and possibly for Freud too.)
The point here is not to insist that you're doing something wrong if you say that you will count wilfully misunderstood books on the list. I want to say that you're probably doing something wrong if you do -- it seems that you're treating the books more as historical artefacts than as, well, books. But maybe it's not obviously wrong to do so. And if it is, there are tricky cases, such as Nietzsche in BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL -- who made an appearance on the Human Events list -- where the book has been gravely misunderstood, but the author seems to have intended that hasty readers would fail to understand.
The point here, rather, is that different answers to each of these questions could result in some drastically different lists. Imagine what different answers about interpretation might mean when it comes to the Bible or the Qu'ran, if you were to expand the list beyond the last couple centuries! So I'd be interested to know what Ralph (for one) was thinking about questions of interpretation and misinterpretation when he was considering which books to list as "harmful"; and I'd be interested to know if there was any one consistent answer to those questions that he was thinking of when he prepared the list.
Re: Rand, Woods, Spencer, Freud?
(#62404)
by Ralph E. Luker on June 7, 2005 at 6:03 AM
by Ralph E. Luker on June 7, 2005 at 6:03 AM
No. I think, fairly obviously so, that there are vastly different degrees of harm, that harm manifests itself in a variety of ways, and that it may result both from a reasonably correct and a grossly inadequate understanding of a book. Some critics apparently believe that I have grossly misunderstood some of the books on the list. I'd argue that it really is an author's responsibility to "make it plain," but I'd also accept the judgment that some authors have reasons not to do so. Given a Straussian reading of the western philosophical tradition, that judgment applies to many philosophers stretching back from and forward from Nietzsche. So, no, there was no consistent answer to why a book appeared on the list -- but for reasons that I think are good ones.
Return to Harmful Books ...
by Roderick T. Long on June 5, 2005 at 5:56 PM