I am not a particularly well-read individual I am envious (in a good way, it challenges me to catch up) of your HAVE READ LISTS and your gifts of memory. I have always read books for ideas, wisdom, and truth. I have read a few books that outright offended my sensibilities. Two of these are Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World and Joe Halderman’s The Forever War.
I read Huxley in high school. Huxley offended my sense of religiosity and righteousness Brave New World lost me in the first few chapters. It was the idea of a baby factory that withholds oxygen from fetuses to create a serval cast that so offended my right to life position. I threw the book down and never picked it up again.
I read Halderman's The Forever War in college. Halderman offended my prejudice. The idea that homosexuality would become the dominant preference of humanity offended my sensibilities. I threw down the book, I picked back up the book thinking that it is only ideas what harm can they do?. I finally let a book defend itself without pre-conceived notions. What was a dangerous idea in my mind ends as a minor theme in the book?
It changed how and what I select on my reading list. It expanded my process with the questions who? when? why? where? and how? To reserve judgment until the end of a book and to get as much information about the author and their intention to write the book.
Some would say that books contain dangerous ideas and they corrupt the minds of children and the weak let's burn all the books that do not conform or threaten our standard. I credit science fiction for breaking me out of that mindset and for freeing me from an anchor, a limited worldview. It takes dangerous ideas to shake up the mind and to challenge a worldview grown stagnant. What books would you challenge people to read that have dangerous ideas? How did you grapple with those ideas and how did these ideas change your worldview? If good books give the reader dangerous ideas, how do we get a dangerous mind? Let's talk about dangerous books.
The only books I read that are considered dangerous today were "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn", thought to be racist by today's love of censoring books considered unpleasant. Sadly, I suppose, I have never read "Fahrenheit 451", "To Kill a Mockingbird", or "Catcher in the Rye". If I recall correctly my high school didn't have them even as far back as the early 80s. We had a head librarian who would go through books and mark out words she found offensive. We didn't care at the time because based on the context of the sentence we could supply the words ourselves.
A book can be put down. You can go onto a discussion board about it and praise or refute it's ideas. You can read annotations and discussions about it. You are in control of how you interact with it. That's the opposite of dangerous.
If your opinions are so weak as to not survive contact with opposing ideas, then perhaps you should rethink those opinions and why you hold them. There's a reason why cults isolate their members from opposing viewpoints.
If you can examine something you don't agree with an open mind, it forces you to give consideration for why different people think that way. It can help you to keep civil when debating issues. It can help you avoid the straw man arguments that staying in an opinion bubble does.
What books would you challenge people to read that have dangerous ideas?
None. 'Dangerous ideas' sounds like an oxymoron to me.
I've had a few books that weigh a good 10-12 pounds and can crack a skull on a good swing, but that is about as dangerous as books get.
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I expressed myself poorly I wanted everyone to talk about controversial SF&F books and how they affected your outlook on life. I apologize if that wasn't clear. They did not have to be controversial they just had to rock your worldview.