Friend was just reading Fahrenheit 451, I'm sure I'ver written few times about it already in forum (movie or book), but there is such a great scenes in movie, when to-be-burned-alive book owner sacrifices herself in burning building cluttered with books, with Mein Kampf and I recall some Nietzsche title shown briefly. Among titles worth to die for - apparently.
Theme of dangerous or banned books is quite interesting. Certainly something like, that's been destroyed for its unacceptable content - be it "Show Me!" or "Myth of the 20th Century", makes one think I need to have it. Thinking the eccentric world known figures, who get killed for something. Hanged, like Rosenberg - or lets say The Green Book of Gaddafi. Especially after the thing went down in Libya, it felt necessary to check out what it's all about.
World is filled with lists of dangerous books, and I won't have now time to list anything myself yet (back to reading...), but seeing the lists, their reasoning, and it makes me think either: 1) Really great books! or 2) I need to read that.
I know there is topic for "what you're reading now", but this is different. Comments and recommendations of harmful books. Not harmful because you think they are - but because contemporary or past cultural climate considered them so.
http://dangerousbooks.wordpress.com/page/2/
And by the conservative americans:
TEN MOST HARMFUL BOOKS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES By: Human Events
HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.
1. The Communist Manifesto
Authors: Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
Publication date: 1848
Score: 74
Summary: Marx and Engels, born in Germany in 1818 and 1820, respectively, were the intellectual godfathers of communism. Engels was the original limousine leftist: A wealthy textile heir, he financed Marx for much of his life. In 1848, the two co-authored The Communist Manifesto as a platform for a group they belonged to called the Communist League. The Manifesto envisions history as a class struggle between oppressed workers and oppressive owners, calling for a workers' revolution so property, family and nation-states can be abolished and a proletarian Utopia established. The Evil Empire of the Soviet Union put the Manifesto into practice.
2. Mein Kampf
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publication date: 1925-26
Score: 41
Summary: Mein Kampf (My Struggle) was initially published in two parts in 1925 and 1926 after Hitler was imprisoned for leading Nazi Brown Shirts in the so-called "Beer Hall Putsch" that tried to overthrow the Bavarian government. Here Hitler explained his racist, anti-Semitic vision for Germany, laying out a Nazi program pointing directly to World War II and the Holocaust. He envisioned the mass murder of Jews, and a war against France to precede a war against Russia to carve out "lebensraum" ("living room") for Germans in Eastern Europe. The book was originally ignored. But not after Hitler rose to power. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, there were 10 million copies in circulation by 1945.
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao
Author: Mao Zedong
Publication date: 1966
Score: 38
Summary: Mao, who died in 1976, was the leader of the Red Army in the fight for control of China against the anti-Communist forces of Chiang Kai-shek before, during and after World War II. Victorious, in 1949, he founded the People's Republic of China, enslaving the world's most populous nation in communism. In 1966, he published Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, otherwise known as The Little Red Book, as a tool in the "Cultural Revolution" he launched to push the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese society back in his ideological direction. Aided by compulsory distribution in China, billions were printed. Western leftists were enamored with its Marxist anti-Americanism. "It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism," wrote Mao.
4. The Kinsey Report
Author: Alfred Kinsey
Publication date: 1948
Score: 37
Summary: Alfred Kinsey was a zoologist at Indiana University who, in 1948, published a study called Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, commonly known as The Kinsey Report. Five years later, he published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. The reports were designed to give a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy. "Kinsey's initial report, released in 1948 . . . stunned the nation by saying that American men were so sexually wild that 95% of them could be accused of some kind of sexual offense under 1940s laws," the Washington Times reported last year when a movie on Kinsey was released. "The report included reports of sexual activity by boys–even babies–and said that 37% of adult males had had at least one homosexual experience. . . . The 1953 book also included reports of sexual activity involving girls younger than age 4, and suggested that sex between adults and children could be beneficial."
5. Democracy and Education
Author: John Dewey
Publication date: 1916
Score: 36
Summary: John Dewey, who lived from 1859 until 1952, was a "progressive" philosopher and leading advocate for secular humanism in American life, who taught at the University of Chicago and at Columbia. He signed the Humanist Manifesto and rejected traditional religion and moral absolutes. In Democracy and Education, in pompous and opaque prose, he disparaged schooling that focused on traditional character development and endowing children with hard knowledge, and encouraged the teaching of thinking "skills" instead. His views had great influence on the direction of American education–particularly in public schools–and helped nurture the Clinton generation.
6. Das Kapital
Author: Karl Marx
Publication date: 1867-1894
Score: 31
Summary: Marx died after publishing a first volume of this massive book, after which his benefactor Engels edited and published two additional volumes that Marx had drafted. Das Kapital forces the round peg of capitalism into the square hole of Marx's materialistic theory of history, portraying capitalism as an ugly phase in the development of human society in which capitalists inevitably and amorally exploit labor by paying the cheapest possible wages to earn the greatest possible profits. Marx theorized that the inevitable eventual outcome would be global proletarian revolution. He could not have predicted 21st Century America: a free, affluent society based on capitalism and representative government that people the world over envy and seek to emulate.
7. The Feminine Mystique
Author: Betty Friedan
Publication date: 1963
Score: 30
Summary: In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan, born in 1921, disparaged traditional stay-at-home motherhood as life in "a comfortable concentration camp"–a role that degraded women and denied them true fulfillment in life. She later became founding president of the National Organization for Women. Her original vocation, tellingly, was not stay-at-home motherhood but left-wing journalism. As David Horowitz wrote in a review for Salon.com of Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique by Daniel Horowitz (no relation to David): The author documents that "Friedan was from her college days, and until her mid-30s, a Stalinist Marxist, the political intimate of the leaders of America's Cold War fifth column and for a time even the lover of a young Communist physicist working on atomic bomb projects in Berkeley's radiation lab with J. Robert Oppenheimer."
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy
Author: Auguste Comte
Publication date: 1830-1842
Score: 28
Summary: Comte, the product of a royalist Catholic family that survived the French Revolution, turned his back on his political and cultural heritage, announcing as a teenager, "I have naturally ceased to believe in God." Later, in the six volumes of The Course of Positive Philosophy, he coined the term "sociology." He did so while theorizing that the human mind had developed beyond "theology" (a belief that there is a God who governs the universe), through "metaphysics" (in this case defined as the French revolutionaries' reliance on abstract assertions of "rights" without a God), to "positivism," in which man alone, through scientific observation, could determine the way things ought to be.
9. Beyond Good and Evil
Author: Freidrich Nietzsche
Publication date: 1886
Score: 28
Summary: An oft-scribbled bit of college-campus graffiti says: "'God is dead'–Nietzsche" followed by "'Nietzsche is dead'–God." Nietzsche's profession that "God is dead" appeared in his 1882 book, The Gay Science, but under-girded the basic theme of Beyond Good and Evil, which was published four years later. Here Nietzsche 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. "Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one's own forms, incorporation and, at the least and mildest, exploitation," he wrote. The Nazis loved Nietzsche.
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Author: John Maynard Keynes
Publication date: 1936
Score: 23
Summary: Keynes was a member of the British elite–educated at Eton and Cambridge–who as a liberal Cambridge economics professor wrote General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in the midst of the Great Depression. The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government. When the business cycle threatens a contraction of industry, and thus of jobs, he argued, the government should run up deficits, borrowing and spending money to spur economic activity. FDR adopted the idea as U.S. policy, and the U.S. government now has a $2.6-trillion annual budget and an $8-trillion dollar debt.
I am surprised Turner Diaries is not there.
Interesting thread...
I think the Satanic verses by Rushdie should be included as well, if only for the chaos it created in the world.
I heard rumours years time ago that one copy was walled into one of the first mosques built in Sweden.... if its true or not, I do not know.
The dangerousbooks list is ridiculous - so many of those titles would only be described as 'dangerous' by rather conservative and old-fashioned educators who have the welfare of twelve-year-olds in mind. I'll agree that 'Go Ask Alice' is a wild read for a young teenager, although it certainly didn't put me off experimenting with drugs.
The conservative scholars' list is dull and predictable and includes many titles taught in universities which hopefully help undergraduates develop critical thinking skills (or turn them into a brainwashed zombie of the ruling elite if you prefer).
Really dangerous political books with crude yet effective propaganda which have most certainly directly inspired political terror include "The Turner Diaries" as noted above, and Frantz Fanon's furious and incendiary work of revolutionary rhetoric "The Wretched of the Earth" which has inspired both homegrown leftists like the Weathermen and Rote Armee Fraktion as well as, I would argue, directly creating many of the ideas which have helped with the appeal of Al-Qaeda type networks using fundamentalist Islam as a cover story for anti-imperialism.
Some wild card conspiracy theorist tomes which I would say were very dangerous, as the effect the sheer strangeness of the material can have on the critical faculties and overall mental hygiene of the reader can be highly deleterious: "The Biggest Secret" by David Icke, and "Trance Formation of America" by Cathy O'Brien and Mark Philips. The latter is something of a must-read in my view, albeit with a big caveat that you should hold onto your hat. Same goes for Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler's extraordinary "Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave" (and its sequel) which also uses NLP techniques to confuse, unsettle and alarm the unwary reader.
The lack of Sade on the lists is curious. His books are still so full of foul sexual deviancy that they have the capacity to shock (when you're not laughing at the sheer over-the-top qualities - the later sections of "120 Days" are expecially silly) over two centuries after they were written, and they remained banned in the UK until almost the end of the twentieth century. From the world of modern-day perverts, I'll pick not Ian Brady, not Peter Sotos, but the pseudo-scholarly 1980 collection of essays "Perspectives on Paedophilia" (ed. Brian Taylor) - simply for the reason that almost every degree-laden contributor to the tome later found themselves unable to control their 'perspective' and wound up in serious trouble with the law, often for very unpleasant institutional abuses of power. Also, lest we forget, the infamous 1970s educational photobook "Show Me!"
The books I saw published by companies like Loompanics during the 1980s which explained how to illegally fuck up enemies' lives using dirty tricks and how to make explosives from household items are indisputably harmful books. They live on in cyberspace txtfiles of course - replete with all their infamous errors.
Quote from: ghoulson on January 19, 2013, 11:34:39 PM
Interesting thread...
I think the Satanic verses by Rushdie should be included as well, if only for the chaos it created in the world.
I heard rumours years time ago that one copy was walled into one of the first mosques built in Sweden.... if its true or not, I do not know.
This was something that sprang to mind when I saw the thread title. I guess trying to keep to 10 is always going to be a challenge, everyone will always have a suggestion for something that may have just missed the final cut.
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 20, 2013, 02:24:46 AMThe dangerousbooks list is ridiculous - so many of those titles would only be described as 'dangerous' by rather conservative and old-fashioned educators who have the welfare of twelve-year-olds in mind.
Modern definitions of conservative seem to be pretty radical, particularly in the US.
Would be interesting to know what books where banned in Soviet countries. I imagine nearly everything ever written is currently banned in North Korea.
The only "danger" any writing seems to pose is to contradict ideas and concepts. The Satanic Versus definitely fit's that - it was genuinely dangerous to the madness of fundy Islam, and therefore dangerous to its author and stockists. A world-changing event.
Another interesting list would be that of the banned books of the Vatican. Apart from internal affairs texts that piddle with theology, there would be items on evolution, for example. Somewhere deep in the vaults is the fabled Third Secret of Fatima...
Quote from: Andrew McIntosh on January 20, 2013, 04:01:54 AM
Modern definitions of conservative seem to be pretty radical, particularly in the US.
Well yeah. I watched the documentary 'Jesus Camp' again recently.
I know that Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was a banned book which was especially dangerous to even know about in the Soviet Union, for obvious reasons. There's an interesting film called 'Propaganda' on youtube made by the DPRK state which claims that many of our beliefs about their conditions are untrue - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NMr2VrhmFI
Anarchist Cookbook
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 20, 2013, 02:24:46 AM
The books I saw published by companies like Loompanics during the 1980s which explained how to illegally fuck up enemies' lives using dirty tricks and how to make explosives from household items are indisputably harmful books. They live on in cyberspace txtfiles of course - replete with all their infamous errors.
These were certainly harmful to me as a thirteen year old, as were innumerous txt. files covering similar themes. Luckily, I never ended up doing anything THAT harmful, haha. I still have a lot of Loompanics titles, along with works by Kurt Saxon, Ragnar Benson, William Powell's famous tome, and countless of others.
Loompanics also published or reprinted a lot of really important, and pretty harmful titles that I still consider invaluable. For Ourselves'
The Right To Be Greedy, Ragnar Redbeard's
Might Is Right, L.A. Rollins'
Lucifer's Lexicon, and a host of others. Their catalogue supplements, and compilations like
Loompanics Unlimited Live! In Las Vegas are things I've returned to time and time again for nearly two decades. Mike Hoy was certainly a brave man, and the recent demise of Loompanics was a sad event.
Quote from: theotherjohn on January 20, 2013, 04:36:16 AM
Despite the scant and suspicious Amazon review by Mr A. Customer, it's text only and strictly "academic".
See 27.00 onwards on this. The professors' masks slip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hli-iPilDII
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 20, 2013, 02:24:46 AM
The dangerousbooks list is ridiculous - so many of those titles would only be described as 'dangerous' by rather conservative and old-fashioned educators who have the welfare of twelve-year-olds in mind.
from first message:
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on January 19, 2013, 09:24:15 PM
Comments and recommendations of harmful books. Not harmful because you think they are - but because contemporary or past cultural climate considered them so.
Certainly the original lists seem to us mostly jokes. But also, thinking MOST HARMFUL, would it be measured only be content, but also by its popularity / impact? Certainly Conan Barbarian books can be more harmful than "American Campgrounds", when measure who and how one can have access to it, hah.. Whether Conan book include absolutely anything harmful by ones standards, is obviously another issue.
Turner Diaries, is great book. Certainly fits into topic, as it's impact has concrete manifest in world and printrun speaks clear language of its popularity. I got couple versions. National Vanguard paperback and slightly bigger edition with jewish editior having his foreword.
Satanic Verses came up most often as "most dangerous book" when I first googled for any reference or list, but preferred to just make couple lists instead of individual books in opening.
De Sade? Read most of them quite young and have very little recollections at this point.
American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis
Stirred up some controversy, not sure much else.
Certainly enjoyed it.
here is a list of books that have been or are banned in some countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments)
Tom Sawyer is dangerous book. it needs to be censored.
Quote from: Levas on January 20, 2013, 12:05:13 PM
here is a list of books that have been or are banned in some countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments)
Tom Sawyer is dangerous book. it needs to be censored.
Great list, Levas!
I've read Final Exit and think it should be in each hospital room instead of the holy bible!
Quote from: ghoulson on January 19, 2013, 11:34:39 PM
Interesting thread...
I think the Satanic verses by Rushdie should be included as well, if only for the chaos it created in the world.
I heard rumours years time ago that one copy was walled into one of the first mosques built in Sweden.... if its true or not, I do not know.
Well they are older Mosques in Sweden than the Satanic Verses so I guess it is not exactly true. I do think I know which mosque are taking about and if all the rumours where true it didn't take much building material to build it since the walls are all filled with pigs, alcohol, pigs blood and now also the Satanic Verses.
I would say the Bible and the Quran caused quite a lot of problems over the years. Do I want to ban them? Actually not. Forbidden ideas like forbidden VHS only make them more desirable.
Quote from: Andrew McIntosh on January 20, 2013, 04:01:54 AM
Would be interesting to know what books where banned in Soviet countries. I imagine nearly everything ever written is currently banned in North Korea.
My girlfriend's mom who grew up in Soviet Russia talked about reading samizdat versions of The Master and Margarita, and smuggling them behind newspapers and magazines for reading in public... the way she talked about it made it sound like it wasn't an extreme thing, maybe if you got caught you'd get a fine or something?
QuoteWould be interesting to know what books where banned in Soviet countries
I think the list would be far too big and it also depends on the time of ussr you would want to check. there were bans on the whole non-Russian alphabet/language books which led to booksmuggling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_book_smugglers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_book_smugglers)
also during regime of Stalin, take any book protecting etc. religion, capitalistic world view, pro-nationalistic views etc, you mention it, book, it will be banned. for the most of the time in ussr. after Gorbatchev came, it was a little easier already. Strict laws started to loosen up after the death of Stalin so overall the list would be far too extensive and varied throughout the time of ussr.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on January 20, 2013, 08:41:10 AM
De Sade? Read most of them quite young and have very little recollections at this point.
In his day, though the books were usually banned and he received little to nothing as payment, they were "best sellers" that regularly went through hundreds of thousands of copies each. I'm sure that the effects those novels had on many men were rather dangerous to the women in their lives.
Also, his political writings had at least some effect on the French revolution (more his speech at the Bastille or whatever, but whatever) although he opposed the more extreme manifestations of those revolutionary times.
The Society of the Spectacle and
The Revolution of Everyday Life as the most shoplifted books of the time in France certainly had some dangerous effects on the social peace of the nation for a couple of years.
In Italy two of the most radical books ever have been probably:
FRANCO GIORGIO FREDA - LA DISINTEGRAZIONE DEL SISTEMA (disintegration of the system) and his books during the FRONTE NAZIONALE YEARS
The first book dealt with radical ideas of revolution from a fascist perspective, opening also to the radical left. A pamphlet that many see as the manifesto of extreme right terrorism, that suggested to strive for a Maoist state with a traditionalist spiritualist inspiration. Other, more recent books deals with extreme racism and was the backbone of the neo-nazi organisation FRONTE NAZIONALE.
ALFREDO BONANNO - LA GIOIA ARMATA (the armed joy) A radical anarchist book that explicitly talked about armed struggle, bank robbing, etc.
Quite surprised that no one has mentioned "By Ways of Deception"
Highly enjoyable read even though its validity is highly debated. Gives you a pretty nice look into the Mossad and their operations. The training required for the participants is absolutely incredible.
Israel attempted to prevent the book from being sold, but to no avail....
Quote from: tiny_tove on January 23, 2013, 12:49:03 AM
In Italy two of the most radical books ever have been probably:
ALFREDO BONANNO - LA GIOIA ARMATA (the armed joy) A radical anarchist book that explicitly talked about armed struggle, bank robbing, etc.
His forbearers Bruno Filippi and Renzo Novatore should share some responsibility for getting the Italian individualist/stirnerist/illegalist/insurrectionist ball rolling. Great writers/thinkers.
I guess Max Stirner's
The Ego And His Own should be mentioned, as it has largely been the basis for illegalist anarchism, from the Bonnot Gang to Bonanno. Camus disparaged it for advocating murder, hell, it's even been blamed for fascism in
Roots of the Right - Readings in Fascist, Racist and Elitist Ideology (1971). Many an anarchist has derived and developed the praxis of the pistol from the theory of this work. Highly recommended, even to those who would shudder at the liberal/left implications that the term "anarchist" now conjures.
An enormously harmful book by any standards is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. How many deaths might it have caused over the last 100 years, in Russia as well as Germany, and how much turmoil is it even now responsible for among fringe groups convinced of its validity despite its first exposure as a malicious fraud coming in 1921. I have it as an appendix in a fairly lunatic conspiracy theory volume 'Behold A Pale Horse' in which the author William Cooper suggests we replace 'Jews' with 'Illuminati'! It's a very effective tool for evoking a paranoiac mindset, an indisputably powerful and sinister text.
And if we are to judge harmful books by the numbers of real-life deaths caused then the all-time winners must be the Bible and the Koran. I don't know the Koran well enough to offer much of a comment on its virtues, but my favourite Old Testament books are Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, most of Psalms and Proverbs. Psalm 88 is a kind of power electronics lyric, wonderfully bleak and nihilistic. The KJV is a great pleasure for any reader with English as a first language, so many of our everyday expressions are taken from it: the influence on the language has affected our way of perceiving the world. Taken as a whole the Bible is surely a dangerous book with very great potential to fuck up lives.
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 23, 2013, 02:53:39 AMAnd if we are to judge harmful books by the numbers of real-life deaths caused then the all-time winners must be the Bible and the Koran.
Yes.
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 23, 2013, 02:53:39 AMThe KJV is a great pleasure for any reader with English as a first language...
Yes again, very much so. The book of Job is rightly regarded as the "literary classic" of the Bible (have to admit I forgot where I read that, I'm afraid). Some fantastic verse. "For the arrows of God are arrayed against me, my spirit drinks their poison".
Top list of books considered harmful in the US. Of course this has only to do with moralist values and political correctness.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/banned-books-week-10-books-censors-jumping/story?id=17332239
http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/censorship/bannedbooksthatshapedamerica
Since gay penguins, wizard and interracial sex will destroy the fabric of modern society. Appealing especially to the youth of today.
Quote from: ARKHE on January 23, 2013, 05:56:26 PM
Top list of books considered harmful in the US. Of course this has only to do with moralist values and political correctness.
It's simply an annual PR opportunity by the educational lobby to try to get kids to read, to get them to read anything, and they can't put anything actually dangerous on the list because it's going in the press all round the world, and the inclusion of something like Howl is a hint that some among the listmakers would actually encourage adventurous young minds to explore Burroughs etc.
It does remain true that the more nauseatingly cosy books on the list are the sort of thing that alienate certain rebels more than ever and are a cause of trouble. Crispin Hellion Glover's essay in Apocalypse Culture 2 in which he directly accused Steven Spielberg's influence on mainstream culture for the Columbine shootings was excellent I thought. Incidentally Jordan, I see you removed your memories of how seeing the first AC too young affected you - that was quite a read, I don't think anyone knew how to respond to that.
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 23, 2013, 02:53:39 AM
And if we are to judge harmful books by the numbers of real-life deaths caused then the all-time winners must be the Bible and the Koran.
As Death Counts, you could Top it easily with Buddhism Influences in Asia. But i don't think you can Point it on the Books alone, its a whole Religion and the Books are just a Part of it. Christian Slaughters went much before the Bible where written, same with Koran. And the Christians where already slaughtered long before the Bible where written
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 23, 2013, 08:14:04 PM
Incidentally Jordan, I see you removed your memories of how seeing the first AC too young affected you - that was quite a read, I don't think anyone knew how to respond to that.
Yeah, well, Mikko pointed out that the thread was made to discuss books that are/were dangerous to society at large, not personally or whatever. Also, I was completely in my cups when I wrote that, and kind of figured that I divulged too much.
Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on January 23, 2013, 08:14:04 PM
Quote from: ARKHE on January 23, 2013, 05:56:26 PM
Top list of books considered harmful in the US. Of course this has only to do with moralist values and political correctness.
It's simply an annual PR opportunity by the educational lobby to try to get kids to read, to get them to read anything, and they can't put anything actually dangerous on the list because it's going in the press all round the world, and the inclusion of something like Howl is a hint that some among the listmakers would actually encourage adventurous young minds to explore Burroughs etc.
It does remain true that the more nauseatingly cosy books on the list are the sort of thing that alienate certain rebels more than ever and are a cause of trouble. Crispin Hellion Glover's essay in Apocalypse Culture 2 in which he directly accused Steven Spielberg's influence on mainstream culture for the Columbine shootings was excellent I thought. Incidentally Jordan, I see you removed your memories of how seeing the first AC too young affected you - that was quite a read, I don't think anyone knew how to respond to that.
Yes, I was meaning to find a list that I saw of what books actually were banned by which school libraries, for year to year, since most of those on the list are hammered in as classics all the bloody time - To kill a mockingbird, Catcher in the rye, etc etc, that kids around the world are forced to read all over the world by enthusiastic English literature teachers. This thread could easily fork out into one on censorship. Think most school libraries (for minors) wouldn't have anything by Ginsberg, let alone something in the vein of American Psycho; probably nothing wilder than On the road. To not distort the tender young minds.
How to not remember Rose Bonbon by Jones-Gorlin Nicolas that created many hassles wherever it has been published. Considered like a Pedo manifesto, it sounds more like a pathetic journey in the mind of a person who cannot control himself at all.
Quote from: ghoulson on January 19, 2013, 11:34:39 PM
Interesting thread...
I think the Satanic verses by Rushdie should be included as well, if only for the chaos it created in the world.
I heard rumours years time ago that one copy was walled into one of the first mosques built in Sweden.... if its true or not, I do not know.
the satanic verses was a brilliant work of non-fiction.
Quote from: jesusfaggotchrist on January 27, 2013, 05:58:07 AM
Quote from: ghoulson on January 19, 2013, 11:34:39 PM
Interesting thread...
I think the Satanic verses by Rushdie should be included as well, if only for the chaos it created in the world.
I heard rumours years time ago that one copy was walled into one of the first mosques built in Sweden.... if its true or not, I do not know.
the satanic verses was a brilliant work of non-fiction.
Care to explain this comment? Not sure I really understand your quip, but maybe my general distaste for magical realism is getting in the way.
A wonderful response from Trevor Blake to the American Library Association's Banned Books Week 2013 is at http://ovo127.com/2013/10/09/trevor-blake-banned-book-week-2013/
If only there were more voices like his who understand what free speech really means.
HongKongGookguy-
Don't be surprised over not seeing de Sade on the list. It only covers 19th-20th century books, and de Sade's most incendiary work was written in the 18th century. I guess we could argue about at least 120 Days' capability to be present on the list granted it's 20th century publication, but no doubt de Sade would have been on the list granted it included books published in his time.
Anyway, I feel like the public outrages over his books in the 20th century, the prosecution of a small French publisher printing his works in limited editions and de Sade's influence in the Moor's Murders could possibly include him on the list, but I'd doubt his readership among conservative readership. Of course some bone-dry academic conservatives are going to bury their noses in political theory rather than explore depravity.
The most dangerous book maybe the writeing of Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (Adolf Josef Lanz) Who publised a the book Theozoology the ostara magazine and founded the Ordo Novi Templi in 1907 "in which the swastika was first used as a symbol of the "Aryan race"
His writeing detailed how "Aryan" peoples originated from interstellar deities (termed Theozoa) who bred by electricity, while "lower" races were a result of interbreeding between humans and ape-men (or Anthropozoa)
Modern russian reprint
(http://nordlux.org/images/product_images/popup_images/8_0.jpghttp://lifeinthemix.co.uk/ESW/Images/250px-Lanz_von_Liebenfels.JPG?xcache=1982%5Bimg%5D%3Cbr%20/%3E%5Bimg%5Dhttp://www.velesova-sloboda.org/jpg/liebenfels-tablizy-zveroludey.jpg)
(http://www.buchfreund.de/covers/13168/9739.jpg)
For lack of space can not be entered on the ideology of the lance. But ten points of the program are to be mentioned as an example.
1 The restoration of the original race cult religion. This obliged the people to pure breeding and explains the racial mix of mortal sin.
2 It will be donated premiums for Blonde marriages.
3 The blonde get special rights. The right is justified by racial standpoint and shapes.
4 The women are brought up in a kind of monasteries for breeding mothers, so they do not get involved with Tschandalen.
5 Pure breeding colonies blond create reserves.
6 The blond man has the right to inseminate several women to the superior race is propagated to a greater extent.
7 Instead man weak men enter marriage helpers.
8 Reorganization of school education for Arioheroik.
9 The blonde belong to the healthy country.
10th Merger to shooting associations and armed corps.
Similarly, the 11 points for the eradication of Tschandalen:
1 Preaching of childless marriages through contraceptives (only the Tsehandalen)
2 Castration
3 Sterilization
4 Strike of the charity - the Tschandalen starve and go through 5 based on disease Slavery
6 Forced labor
7 Deportation to the desert
8 Prostitution
9 Use as cannon fodder
10 Direct liquidation, especially at the last decisive battle, the world revolution of the
11th Arioheroiker Lifting of press freedom.
Quote from: jesusfaggotchrist on January 27, 2013, 05:58:07 AM
the satanic verses was a brilliant work of non-fiction.
not really no.
contributing:
The Collector by John Fowles, a novel about a psychopathic young man who is obsessed with and imprisons a woman in his basement. Inspired serial killers Christopher Wilder, Robert Berdella and, most notably, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng.
Quote from: l.b. on December 09, 2013, 09:49:59 PM
The Collector by John Fowles, a novel about a psychopathic young man who is obsessed with and imprisons a woman in his basement. Inspired serial killers Christopher Wilder, Robert Berdella and, most notably, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng.
A brilliant and very bleak book. I love The Magus too. His startling decline as a writer afterwards is similar to what happened to Colin Wilson (RIP).
I can just add that there's a really fantastic mid-60's movie adaption of The Collector too, starring Terence Stamp as the troubled collector. It's way more suspenseful than your average Hannibal Lector serial killer flick.
Probably this one: http://www.savitridevi.org/lightning-contents.html
I note w/ interest the Bible is not listed ...