# What "Evil" books should I read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369 "2009-06-29T18:09:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/21 "2009-06-29T22:08:01Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Except for advocating the violent overthrow of society, the abolition of private property, and abolition of the family. Jesus advocated all those things too. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/22 "2009-06-29T22:15:00Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > Has anyone mentioned “The Anarchist’s Cookbook” yet? Don’t try the recipes at home, I hear they’re quite as likely to blow you up as to work as advertised. I’ve read it. I’ve heard, and believe, that the author later came to his senses and pronounced the book crap. Back To The Op To Serve Man- A Cookbook For People by Karl Wurf. I have met the author and been in his kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/23 "2009-06-29T22:18:52Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Some of the Marquise De Sade’s stuff is pretty messed up, even by today’s standards. Hmm. Can’t say I’m familiar with her work. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/24 "2009-06-29T22:42:46Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Some of the Marquise De Sade’s stuff is pretty messed up, even by today’s standards. Dio, I don’t think you need the qualifiers _some of_ or _pretty_ in that sentence. Take, for instance, _Philosophy of the Boudoir_, which culminates with a 14-year-old-girl facilities the rape of her mother by a syphiltic and then sewing up her mother’s vagina–ostensibly to keep the diseased semen from leaking out, but clearly because she thinks it amusing. I think if Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Superman met the Marquis de Sade on the road, Buddha would immediately kill him, Supes would incinerate the body, and Jesus would say, “Yeah,I know I said everybody could be forgiven their sins, but there’s always an exception.” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/25 "2009-06-29T22:49:00Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Jesus advocated all those things too. Dio, I generally agree with you, but that’s just silly. If you consider the Jesus of the Gospels to be a fictional character (as I do), it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t want society overthrown, as doing so would be trivial for him given the story’s basic premises. If he’d wanted Rome violently ejected from Palestine, he could have bombed Pilate with a bolide or 20, or turned all the water in the governor’s household to sulfuric acid, or whatever–or, if he was feeling lazy, called in Michael and a host of angels. In terms of the story, Jesus’ pronouncements about bringing a sword rather than peace, about turning fathers and sons against one another, and so forth, are clearly not calls to violence; they are symbolic predictions of a coming paradigm shift. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/26 "2009-06-29T22:55:52Z")
I could argue the same thing about Marx, but I could make a case that Jesus literally advocated the abolition of class, family and personal possessions. Some of his parables were far more subversive than people realize. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/27 "2009-06-29T22:59:10Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Dio, I don’t think you need the qualifiers _some of_ or _pretty_ in that sentence. Take, for instance, _Philosophy of the Boudoir_, which culminates with a 14-year-old-girl facilities the rape of her mother by a syphiltic and then sewing up her mother’s vagina–ostensibly to keep the diseased semen from leaking out, but clearly because she thinks it amusing. That’s exactly the story I was thinking of. ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/28 "2009-06-29T23:01:26Z")
I recommend the Bible. It’s gruesome stuff, but it will help you understand more about the world. (Just don’t let kids near it.) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/29 "2009-06-29T23:04:39Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That’s exactly the story I was thinking of. I take it you haven’t read Juliette, then. It’s even worse. Even in my Fabulous Creature incarnation, I’d have had to say, “Okay, de Sade, calm down. You don’t have to rape, murder, & eat every single virgin you see. In fact, screw it–somebody put a cap in the Frenchman.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/30 "2009-06-30T00:38:01Z")
It doesn’t get much more evil than [_The World Power Foundation: Its Goals and Platform,_](http://www.amazon.com/World-Power-Foundation-Goals-Platform/dp/1559500026i) published by the late lamented [Loompanics.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loompanics_Unlimited) It’s not boring, either. Quite the reverse. (Pure fiction/parody, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/31 "2009-06-30T00:42:15Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > “The Klansman” which is the book that “Birth of a Nation” is based on, I understand, is pretty evil. Nitpick: [_The Clansman._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clansman) By [Thomas Dixon, Jr.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dixon,_Jr.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/32 "2009-06-30T00:46:27Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Except for advocating the violent overthrow of society, the abolition of private property, and abolition of the family. What exactly does _The Communist Manifesto_ say about abolition of the family? ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/33 "2009-06-30T01:26:12Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > He advocated turning over all power to a small group of ideologues with no checks over them. Marx simply assumed that this would be okay because these men would only use their unchecked power righteously. That’s not just naive; that’s foolish. The reality is that once these men had power they kept it and used it to favor themselves. Marx may not have wanted to create men like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Dzerzhinsky, Beria, Ho, Castro, Tito, Ceausescu, Guzman, Honecker, Hoxha, Mengistu, Najibullah, Neto, Kim and Kim Junior, but he created a system that all of these men used. I think you’re (mis)attributing Lenin’s idea of a revolutionary vanguard to Marx. And I don’t see how Marx created any kind of “system”. He came up with a theory (which is widely considered important, if not entirely correct) which was mutated by various demagogues and dictators to suit their ends. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/34 "2009-06-30T02:29:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What exactly does _The Communist Manifesto_ say about abolition of the family? From the second chapter: > [@](#): > > Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. > > On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution. > > The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. > > Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty. > > But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social. > > And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. > > The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour. > > But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus. > > The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. > > He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. > > For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial. > > Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives. > > Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/35 "2009-06-30T02:59:06Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > From the second chapter: Hmmm . . . That don’t actually sound so evil . . . ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/36 "2009-06-30T03:03:35Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I think if Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Superman met the Marquis de Sade on the road, Buddha would immediately kill him, Supes would incinerate the body, and Jesus would say, “Yeah,I know I said everybody could be forgiven their sins, but there’s always an exception.” I haven’t really read de Sade, so I don’t know if this is true; but I once read that he advocated state brothels in which **all** women would be forced to serve at some period in their lives. So, you see, even de Sade had his good side. ::d&r, hunched over with hands held protectively low:: ---
**Author:** ![filling\_pages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9bd4f/32.png) [@filling\_pages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filling_pages)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/37 "2009-06-30T14:22:34Z")
I read the **Turner Diaries**. Bought a copy at a Goodwill for a buck or so, both to satisfy my curiosity and to keep some kid from picking it up. It was written to appeal to the masses, so it’s not slow, but it’s pretty much trash regardless of the subject matter. I wouldn’t suggest it. On the other hand, Samuel Delany wrote a book called **[Hogg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogg_(novel))** that is probably the dirtiest and most disturbing piece of fiction I’ve ever read (not least because of Delany’s skill as an author). It’s told from the viewpoint of an 11 year old boy, and every page is drenched in (to quote the wiki) “murder, homosexuality, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape.” ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/38 "2009-06-30T15:11:32Z")
Hmm. While all that sounds really cool, I’m realizing now that I want my evil books to be something that some people have bought into. Has _Hogg_ been a piece of dogma for any movement? ---
**Author:** ![filling\_pages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9bd4f/32.png) [@filling\_pages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filling_pages)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/39 "2009-06-30T15:20:54Z")
Lord, I hope not. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369/40 "2009-06-30T15:22:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I haven’t really read de Sade, so I don’t know if this is true; but I once read that he advocated state brothels in which **all** women would be forced to serve at some period in their lives. > > So, you see, even de Sade had his good side. > > ::d&r, hunched over with hands held protectively low:: I thought about summarizing some of the evil deeds in Juliette, Justine, the 120 Days of Sodom, & the aforementioned Philosophy of the Boudior in a spoiler box, but that wouldn’t save ME from having to recall it. Trust me. If de Sade were alive and had the ability to and intention of putting his fantasies into practice, everybody in a thousand miles would drop what they were doing to stop him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evil-books-should-i-read/501369.md?page=3)