The Course of Positive Philosophy, by Auguste Comte

Preconceptions: Come on--it's a positive philosophy. How bad can it be?

Reaction: That this book appears on any list of harmful books illustrates not only how absurd the very concept of such a list happens to be, but how bizarrely afraid and repressed the people are who compiled it.

Comte suggests that the course of human philosophical development has proceeded in this order:

• Man relies upon theological explanations for phenomena: "God did it."
• Man relies upon abstract explanations for phenomena: "It's the way Nature works."
• Man relies solely upon scientific or "positive philosophy," the direct observation of facts without emotional or moral import: "I have no idea why that's happening, but here's what's going on when it does."

In other words, Comte thinks that observation is greater than speculation, and what we see is better than what we assume.

Gasp!

This book appears on the list of evil because it wonders if we cannot study social phenomena with the same disinterested statistical observation with which we study, say, the stars or the sea. Comte suggests a "social physics" by which we can simply look at the way human beings interact and attempt to understand them.

He coined the word "sociology," and that's why the conservatives hate him.

We, alas, have little evidence to suggest that God exists. Lacking such evidence, we have to take our best guess based upon our observations and experience. My own beliefs, indeed, are of what I tend to call the Monkey's Paw God of Unintended Consequences, some enormous force answering our prayers in ways we don't expect. Your beliefs, I'm sure, are less neurotic.

Comte doesn't really care if there's a God--it has no practical value for his social physics.

What Comte suggests is that we set aside these questions for which we cannot gather evidence and research the questions for which we can. If we can't figure out who made the Earth right now, at least we can figure out what it is made of until we can.

This is a scary concept to people whose entire lives are predicated upon observationless beliefs. Many of the books on this list are here--including this one and Friedan's and Kinsey's--because they conflict with moral preconceptions. They observe things not congruent with the moral wishes of some people.

They attempt to say what is.

Oddly, these books are not attacked then solely on the basis of their information but on their "negative influence." They release ideas that should not be released. Worse, those ideas once released can never be recaptured.

Comte and Kinsey and Friedan and Marx and even crazy syphillitic Hitler have only this in common: they've attempted to say what they see. What they see, of course, can be skewed by their preconceptions. They may even be wrong. But the process of seeing and articulating what they see is not itself "harmful" or "evil" except if it threatens someone else's ideas.

In a duel of concepts, the one with actual data should win. By that measure, many of the books on this list are bunk. But that should be a comfort to those who actually have data instead of a threat, shouldn't it?

Why are conservatives afraid to let us read crazy ideas? Do they not trust us to "investigate" as Chairman Mao suggests? Or are they worried that we'll discover that neither side of the debate has any real numbers to support it?

Comte wasn't conservative or liberal. He just wanted to restrict our debate to things we can actually see and measure. Imagine a government in which we didn't debate whether it was good or evil to sponsor midnight basketball or welfare or school vouchers, but in which we did all those things and measured the results.

I frankly don't give a shit what politicians and academics "think." I want to see what they see. I want to see their numbers.

That idea is frightening to people who don't always have the numbers for all of their opinions. How terrible it would be if some of our treasured opinions are statistically wrong while others are correct.

I guess the danger of really knowing something is that it threatens our intricate systems of prejudice.

Verdict: If this book is evil for suggesting that we function based upon evidence instead of belief, then you'd better sign me up for the short bus to hell.

Looks like all the people with interesting ideas to talk about are going there anyway.

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