h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I happened to be doing a search on this subject when I came across this list, 'The Ten Most Harmful Books Ever Written':
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

I think it's a foregone conclusion that I didn't agree with most of this drivel. The notable exception was, of course, Mein Kampf, which is an execrable book. I was nevertheless surprised to see Silent Spring getting an honorable mention. Harmful? How?

I think the people who subscribe to my patchy little journal might have their own views as to what makes a harmful book. I'd suggest either 'The Sceptical Environmentalist' or 'The Bell Curve'. What does everyone else think?

Have you ever tried to read Mein Kampf? I don't think the damn thing can be classed as 'harmful', simply because your average Joe is never going to get past the first 10 pages, it's so badly written. Dull, dull dull.

Actually, I'm not sure what would constitute a 'harmful' book...

I did try once, and I found it dreadful.

I suppose a harmful book is one which misrepresents what is generally taken to be accepted wisdom, and does so in a tendentious and divisive manner. Even though 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' contains a lot of Christian tub-thumping I wouldn't call it a harmful book in any way, despite being an atheist. Similarly for 'His Dark Materials'. Harmful books are those which lie in a very persuasive manner, and seek to convert the impressionable to an extreme viewpoint by playing on prejudices.

Oscar Wilde gave down his judgment that no book is moral or immoral. They are simply well or badly written.

But maybe that's a bit like saying that guns are not harmful.

As much as I respect Mr Wilde, I think that's bollocks, personally. I think at the very least, books can be harmful if they use fallacious arguments to support highly controversial viewpoints. I'll give you an example. There are plenty of books you can buy which will tell you that all animal experiments are completely pointless. They all draw a conclusion first and then misrepresent or lie to support it. But impressionable people can read this, and before you know it they're digging up corpses from graveyards. Unfortunately, the fallacies indulged in are extremely subtle and, to be blunt, beyond most ordinary people's capacity for discriminative thought. This kind of book is the product of a bigoted mind (see my personal space), and one that wants the rest of humanity to follow that line of thinking as well.

Given the greater influence of other media, such as film, newspapers, TV and internet, the idea that books can be 'harmful' seems almost laughable these days.

I kind of feel that anybody who has the discipline to sit down and read a book from cover to cover (especially something as woefully boring as Mein Kampf, which I have read and which did not result in me feeling any sympathy for the Third Reich btw) and to take in all of the contents, probably also has the intelligence to weigh up the arguments contained within it and come to their own conclusions.

"Harmful" is a very subjective word, meaning different things to each of us, as illustrated in the inclusion of Silent Spring in that list.

Books broaden the mind, whether the mind that is broadened then agrees with my broad mind is another matter entirely


Fb

Well I agree that all books broaden the mind, but some have a conflict of opinion within them, almost like the author(s) dont quite agree about what they are writting about. A lot of people find the Bible boring, but how many are only bored by it's confusing content?

Or its incredible length perhaps?

Not really, there are simplified versions, and lenght never stopped people reading Homer's illiad, or war and peace.

Don't you believe it I know a lot of people who won't touch War and Peace for the very reason that it's a doorstop.

I think that's why people think a book is bad, they take one look and decide 'no way! too long' yet if we talked about fact books, peole find the thickest they can find (probably something to do with pretty pictures!) but I cant understand why people dont want to read thicker novels.

Are lies harmful? Is demagoguery harmful? Are they any the less harmful because they come to us through the medium of print rather than the spoken word?

As far as I'm concerned, if the Religious Right start blacklisting harmful books then people like me on the centre-left have a right to respond in kind.

If you did that, the variety of books would become ever narrower though, making it harder for people to read all points of view on a given topic in order to develop their own stance.

Whilst I abhor what some people write and say, I do still believe in freedom of speech and allowing people to figure it out for themselves. If they come to a different conclusion to mine, it does not mean that it's 'wrong' - however much I may disagree with them.

I find the most harmful books are the ones that give you paper cuts.

I'm not so sure. When people lie or use fallacious arguments, then these need to be exposed. I don't however agree with censorship: that would be playing into the hands of the authors of this stuff. Heinrich Heine wrote "Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." Too Bloody right.

I think that giving a humanities student The Bell Curve to read might be a GOOD idea as it would do wonders to help them hone their critical thinking. Thes books could even be said to be useful in that they illustrate how NOT to construct an argument. Besides, my main problem with the Bell Curve is that it bangs on about IQ being the be-all and end-all. As I have said on *many* occasions, a brief glance around you will show that most of the world's problems stem not from stupidity but a lack of fellow-feeling. Having brighter people in the world is not an intrinsically bad thing but it's debatable whether it would help as much as having more people who actually *care* about the lot of the poor and the downtrodden.

Back to guns (I'm sticking to mine}.

Guns only have one use: to harm (or coerce, by threatening harm). Therefore they are rightly described as harmful. Yet (in the west) cars are much more dangerous, and harm much more people than guns do.

Cars are not taken as basically harmful because they have other uses, that well outweigh the damage they do. They are not designed to harm.

Books can be designed to achieve vastly different ends, some pure and others dodgy. Yet the curious fact is: that the ends they achieve are not necessarily the ends their authors (thought they) had in mind. A call to hedonistic dissipation, for instance, could be in effect the greatest warning against it.

That for me is a good enough reason not to blame the book for the harm that is done by the people waving the book.

(Synopsis of the above: I agree with Oscar.)

OK: reasonable points, eloquently expressed.

But would all those people who think that the written word is not intrinsically harmful allow the Daily Mail in their house? And if not, why not?

I think I'm with Oscar too.

Daily Mail? Well I was brought up with the Express coming into the house and yet I haven't read it (out of choice) since 1980. Similarly, my father was a Christian and brought us up with those values...and I am an athiest.

Give people credit and freedom to make up their own minds

And I'd rather read a well-written book that I don't agree with any day.

To my horrow I found the Daily Mail lurking in my house last weekend. Him indoors wanted the free CD. I took great delight to making hamster bedding out of it.

Guns don't *just* hurt or kill- target shooting is a legitimate sport. Only people are capable of evil, objects and words cannot have a moral position. Both can be used *by people* for evil, but it's an important distinction.

On the subject of guns, seeing as the primary purpose for which they are designed is to kill, does that mean than we cannot dismiss the utilitarian viewpoint that getting rid of guns totally gets rid of gun crime? I think it boils down to the value we place on human life relative to that of allowing people to indulge their pastime. Ultimately, if guns are available, people will use them to kill other people. It's easy to take up another hobby. It's impossible to restore a murdered life.

I live in Nottingham. I live in a quiet peaceful part of Nottingham, but certain parts of the city are no-go areas simply because of guns. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4326118.stm
If someone believes can stand up in front of this girl's parents and defend the availability of guns to the public becasue they need to follow their hobby, I'd like to seem them try.