- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 49
- Reaction score
- 2
Thanks to Book TV, I came across this little slice of propaganda posing as scholarship.
Here's the inside flap:
You've heard of "The Great Books?" These are their evil opposites. From Machiavelli's The Prince to Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto to Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, family breakdown, and disastrous social experiments. And yet these authors' bad ideas are still popular and pervasive--in fact, they might influence your own thinking without your realizing it. Here with the antidote is Professor Benjamin Wiker. In his scintillating new book, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World (And 5 Others That Didn't Help), he seizes each of these evil books by its malignant heart and exposes it to the light of day.
First of all, its funny that he takes some of the most controversial figures in western thought (Nietzsche and Darwin are also on the list) and pretends like the world has swallowed them hook, line, and sinker, and Benjamin Wiker's come to save the day.
Second, he seems to be particularly annoyed by Enlightenment Rationalism. Again, ER has been debated before. Many times in many ways. Foucault, that homosexual atheist, for example, critiques the limits of rationalism, which I'm sure annoys the hell (hehe) out of Wiker.
Third, to stay true to the title, he never mentions any positives in the works mentioned. To say these works are flawed is one thing; to say they're evil is another.
One thing, I don't get is: why am I so annoyed? It's a book that preaches to the converted and won't be taken very seriously as good scholarship outside the circle of conservative Christians who will read it. Maybe its Wiker's beard.
Here's the inside flap:
You've heard of "The Great Books?" These are their evil opposites. From Machiavelli's The Prince to Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto to Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, family breakdown, and disastrous social experiments. And yet these authors' bad ideas are still popular and pervasive--in fact, they might influence your own thinking without your realizing it. Here with the antidote is Professor Benjamin Wiker. In his scintillating new book, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World (And 5 Others That Didn't Help), he seizes each of these evil books by its malignant heart and exposes it to the light of day.
First of all, its funny that he takes some of the most controversial figures in western thought (Nietzsche and Darwin are also on the list) and pretends like the world has swallowed them hook, line, and sinker, and Benjamin Wiker's come to save the day.
Second, he seems to be particularly annoyed by Enlightenment Rationalism. Again, ER has been debated before. Many times in many ways. Foucault, that homosexual atheist, for example, critiques the limits of rationalism, which I'm sure annoys the hell (hehe) out of Wiker.
Third, to stay true to the title, he never mentions any positives in the works mentioned. To say these works are flawed is one thing; to say they're evil is another.
One thing, I don't get is: why am I so annoyed? It's a book that preaches to the converted and won't be taken very seriously as good scholarship outside the circle of conservative Christians who will read it. Maybe its Wiker's beard.
