The “10 Books that Screwed Up the World And 5 Others that Didn’t Help” by Dr. Benjamin Wiker is a thought-provoking romp for the brain for those intrepid souls with a penchant for philosophy or the history of western civilization particularly the malevolent side of that history. Wiker opens his preamble of malice with the “preliminary screw ups” which lay the foundation for all the latter really big screw-ups. The foundational books include “The Prince” by Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), “Discourse on the Method” by French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1611), “Leviathan” by English political philosopher Thomas Hobbs (1588-1679), and “Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality Among Men” by Swiss political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Each of these devious books in their own way attempt to redefine traditional morality based on belief in a transcendent God.

Having set the stage Wiker proceeds with “the10 big screw-ups” in the following order: “The Communist Manifesto” by German political economist and revolutionary Karl Marx (1818-83) and German social scientist Friedrich Engels (1820-95); “Utilitarianism” by British philosopher and liberal thinker John Stuart Mill (1806-73); “The Descent of Man” by English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-82); “Beyond Good and Evil” by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1841-1900); “The State and Revolution” by Russian revolutionary Vladimir I. Lenin (1870-1924); “The Pivot of Civilization” by American reproductive activist and negative eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger (1879-1966); “Mein Kampf” by Austrian-born politician and founder of the National Socialist Workers Party Adolf Hitler (1881-1945); “Future of an Illusion” by Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939); “Coming of Age in Samoa” by American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-73); and “Sexual Behavior of the Human Male” by American biologist Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956). Wiker caps his list with a “dishonorable mention” “The Feminine Mystique” by American feminist Betty Freidan (1921-2006). From these fifteen infamous books Dr. Wiker makes a compelling case for how godless atheistic philosophies and thought have been maliciously used by those in power to promulgate massive human suffering in the 20th century citing Soviet and Maoist communism and Nazi racism as prime examples.

Appropriately, Wiker initiates his list with Machiavelli's “The Prince” whose insidious malevolence pervades all the other works particularly the amoral philosophies of Hobbs, Descartes, Rousseau, Mill, and Nietzsche but even more potently and with devastating consequences in the self-serving political writings of Hitler, Marx, and Lenin. Wiker describes Machiavelli as “one of the most profound teachers of evil the world has ever known”. And characterizes “The Prince” as “a monument of wicked council meant for rulers who had shed all moral and religious scruples and were therefore daring enough to believe that evil, deep, dark and almost unthinkable evil, is often more effective than good.” Not surprising, Stalin an admirer of Machiavelli was known to keep a copy of “The Prince” on his night stand.

Wiker drives home his thesis with the over reaching pseudo science of Darwin, Freud and Sanger and then boosts his case with the social science frauds of Mead, Kinsey, and Friedan. Dr. Wiker argues passionately that each of these malignant books screwed up the world because they essentially denied the reality of human sin inherent to the human condition. He submits that “there is something profoundly wrong with us, some crack or deep taint that is largely incurable because it is largely invisible, a terrible twist that begins in the soul and curls its way outward. These are the threads of the screws that have screwed up the world.” The rejection of sin was cleverly achieved by these deceptive sophists by replacing the traditional Biblical myth of Eden with either their own primitive Eden myth from which we are striving to return or some future humanistic utopia toward which we are progressing often by any means necessary.

Wiker estimates that in total these immoral philosophies as expounded in these infernal books have led to the death of hundreds of millions of innocent people. Very bad books indeed! However, Wiker believes that the best defense against the pernicious ideas espoused in these books is not to ban them but rather to expose them to the critical light of reason to show them for what they truly are: evil in both word and deed. Finally, Wiker admonishes that if we as a civilization are to do better in the 21st century we must return to traditional ideas of God and sin and the transcendent concept of salvation. Otherwise these futile attempts to make heaven on earth without God will only continue to create more hell on earth.

Benjamin Wiker is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute and holds a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University. He has also published Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists (InterVarsity Press, 2002).

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Created Jan 01, 2009 at 7:45pm • Submit your own review...