Dangerous things

The list of the 10 most dangerous books of the 19th and 20th century disturbs me no end. Sure, it’s easy to dismiss it by looking at the organization that created that list, but I wonder how influential that institution really is.

Of course “Mein Kampf” is in there, “The communist manifesto”, “Das Kapital”. But books like “The Kinsey report”? Nietzsche? John Maynard Keys?

And of course in the runners up section there is Darwin and Freud, Skinner and Margaret Mead, Club of Rome, Simone de Beauvoir

What is it that makes these people feel so threatened by ideas that changed the world? Some of them for the better, some for the worse. And a critique of a book that says:

His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.

is laughable.

When will those people that maintain that list, ask for these books to be removed from public libraries? When will they demand that they be burned?