John Dewey = Adolf Hitler? HEO thinks so.
| By ajentleson - Apr 26th, 2006 at 4:46 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
This may not be new, but it's definitely notable. Last year the conservative magazine Human Events Online (HEO) asked "a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders" to help them compile a list of the "10 Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." Included on the list are books by Hitler and Mao, with Marx beating everyone out for the number one spot.
But just below Mein Kampf and Mao's Little Red Book are works by John Dewey, Betty Friedan and John Maynard Keynes.
Hitler and Mao were totalitarian dictators responsible for the deaths of millions; Dewey helped lay the foundation for the American system of public education, Friedan helped found feminism, and Keynes' economic theories were the basis for much of FDR's domestic agenda, including the New Deal.
That HEO would strike a moral equivalency between them and the likes of Hitler and Mao says a lot about how hysterical the right can get when it comes to dealing with people with whom they disagree.
Authors who didn't make it into the top ten but who merited honorable mention include Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Margaret Mead, Rachael Carson and Sigmund Feud.
It boggles the mind to imagine what a syllabus for a 19th and 20th century literature survey would look like if it was designed by these folks.
But just below Mein Kampf and Mao's Little Red Book are works by John Dewey, Betty Friedan and John Maynard Keynes.
Hitler and Mao were totalitarian dictators responsible for the deaths of millions; Dewey helped lay the foundation for the American system of public education, Friedan helped found feminism, and Keynes' economic theories were the basis for much of FDR's domestic agenda, including the New Deal.
That HEO would strike a moral equivalency between them and the likes of Hitler and Mao says a lot about how hysterical the right can get when it comes to dealing with people with whom they disagree.
Authors who didn't make it into the top ten but who merited honorable mention include Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Margaret Mead, Rachael Carson and Sigmund Feud.
It boggles the mind to imagine what a syllabus for a 19th and 20th century literature survey would look like if it was designed by these folks.
!
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Who are these HEO people?
The whole idea of having them compile lists independently rather than discussing it out with one another and coming to a consensus is just abominably stupid, though. A terrible way to have gone about this project.
Also, they need to work Robert George harder. Why in the world does he have time for this?