Mencken's Creed

[demnan]

Mencken's Creed

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/mencken/

[Walt Starr]

1. BRAVO!!!!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[KlatooBNikto]

2. I believe that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal is evil by Mencken's

definition, on all counts.

[vi5]

3. Amen....

Sadly this will be disagreed with by many even on our side because it might make somebody feel badly.

[demnan]

4. My grandmother was a 1920's rebel and a great admirer

of H.L. Mencken. She left her Indiana home, bobbed her red hair, painted her nails and moved to heathen Chicago. She lived with us when I grew up and taught me to read the newspapers, Mencken, Fitzgerald and Sinclair.

You go, Gaga! :loveya: - a tribute to my red-haired, twin, left-handed grandma born on February 29, 1898.

[megatherium]

5. He also believed that Jews were the "most unpleasant race

ever heard of."

on edit: typo

[demnan]

7. Do you have a link for that?

as I recall, he defended Communist Jews in his day, saying the government shouldn't pursecute them. I don't believe in everything he said, at any rate! He was a white male of his time, and a conservative to boot. That isn't the point. The point is, what he said here is true.

[megatherium]

8. here's a link.

http://www.powells.com/review/2003_01_23.html

Mencken was an entertaining but acerbic writer. Perhaps it would be unfair to criticize him for anti-Semitism, given that that was pretty common in the early-to-mid 20th century. Actually, the purpose of my post was less to slag Mencken and more to suggest that there may be a fine line between skepticism and bigotry.

[demnan]

12. I'm sorry, that's a quote to a review

it doesn't count what someone else said he said. Where is the quote that says he said what you said?

[beam me up scottie]

16. This is it in context:

The New Republic Online
Thursday, January 23rd, 2003

The Sophomore
A Review by Jackson Lears

The sworn enemy of the "booboisie" was a bit of a boob himself. Like any narrow-minded know-it-all, Mencken was given to sweeping dismissals of entire social groups, including teachers ("the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole class of mental workers"), farmers (a "rabble of peasants who sleep in their underclothes"), and Jews ("the most unpleasant race ever heard of").

"a bit of a boob himself"
"narrow-minded know-it-all"

Nope, no issues there...




more at: http://www.powells.com/review/2003_01_23.html

[megatherium]

18. I doubt he said such things in print.

Of course, the review that I linked to is a hostile review of a book in defense of Mencken. I'm afraid I do not have a primary source documenting his anti-Semitism. (I grabbed this link because I assumed it is well-known that he was anti-Semitic, and this link was the first thing that cropped up on Google.)

Anyway, pardon me for giving you static, for having posting yet another cheerful attack on religion on DU. Not everyone on this board is like-minded on this issue, and those of us who happen to be religious are a bit weary of the often-repeated sentiment that we are simple-minded or bigoted for being religious. (Sorry if this comes across as hostile: given the many atrocious things going on these days, I can't blame anyone for being angry at religion.)

on edit: added last parenthetical comment. Note for the wise: never use square brackets on this board. Things vanish.

[beam me up scottie]

19. How is posting " Mencken's Creed"

"yet another cheerful attack on religion on DU." ?

[megatherium]

20. It isn't exactly pro-religion, is it?

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

But I should apologize for posting my original comment on this thread. Your quote from Gore Vidal certainly trumps my quote.

BTW I am a liberal Episcopalian; I get irritated at being lumped together with fundamentalists.

[beam me up scottie]

23. I don't ever "lump" anybody in

with fundies unless they are a fundie, so no worries.
But by posting: "Not everyone on this board is like-minded on this issue, and those of us who happen to be religious are a bit weary of the often-repeated sentiment that we are simple-minded or bigoted for being religious." you're accusing the op of attacking religion and she is not doing anything of the kind.

[onager]

9. Then that would put him in agreement with most of the Popes...

...wouldn't it? I'd also like to see the context of that quote, since Mencken was somewhat famous for hyperbole.

I still get a chuckle out of his insults directed at the American Midwest, which he spoke of as "pumping its vile silo juices" into the rest of the nation. Mencken might have despised the Fundamentalist South, but he REALLY went after the hypocritical Babbitts in the middle of the country.

Oh, and FWIW, Mencken was one of the VERY few Americans to speak up for the rights of Emma Goldman--born Jewish in Russia but later an outspoken atheist. Also an anarchist, pacifist and one of the first women to call herself a "feminist," as opposed to a "suffragette."

I believe Mencken referred to her as "an American saint." For her part, Goldman sensibly never trusted Mencken or anyone else in the mainstream media of her day...which was just about as bad as ours today.

[beam me up scottie]

11. You left out this part :

"But in Mencken's private correspondence, he also snarls at black Americans, Orientals, Britons, women, and WASPs, particularly the clay-eating Appalachians, whom he regarded as subhuman. But private irritability is of no consequence when compared to what really matters, public action.

Far from being an anti-Semite, Mencken was one of the first journalists to denounce the persecution of the Jews in Germany at a time when the New York Times, say, was notoriously reticent. On November 27, 1938, Mencken writes (Baltimore Sun), "It is to be hoped that the poor Jews now being robbed and mauled in Germany will not take too seriously the plans of various politicians to rescue them." He then reviews the various schemes to "rescue" the Jews from the Nazis, who had not yet announced their own final solution."


by Gore Vidal
The Foreward to the 1991 book
The Impossible H.L. Mencken
edited by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers

[demnan]

13. Thank you

:loveya: I truly think that Gore Vidal is the literary descendant of H.L. Mencken in his essay prose. Oh how sweet it is to offend, (and perhaps cause to think?)

[beam me up scottie]

17. Ain't it funny how one can spin a few words...

Our *cough* president *cough* has that unique ability as well.
:loveya: back

[megatherium]

21. sorry, not done deliberately. (see post #20)

But I wouldn't credit our president with verbal skill either. His neurolinguistic programmer Karl Rove would get all the credit.

[beam me up scottie]

25. Isn't that a riot?

You would think rove would stop putting polysyllabic words in his speeches since chimpy's native language consists mostly of grunts and squeaks.
And I REALLY wish they would stop letting him use the word "nuclear".

[The Magistrate]

22. In Short, Sir, The Fellow Comes Under Mr. Field's Epigram

"I am free of all prejudice: I hate everyone equally."

[beam me up scottie]

24. psst!

(I'm a "mam" :P )
That's was my interpretation as well.

[beam me up scottie]

6. Way to go Demnan!

Thanks for posting it !
:toast:

[anarchy1999]

10. I can't remember exactly, but didn't he say something about making money..

Something along the lines of: no one ever lost money on under/over-estimating the stupidity/ignorance of the masses.

[demnan]

14. this:

"No one ever went wrong underestimating the intelligence of the American Public"

No link, that's ingrained in my memory. :D

[vi5]

15. Actually isn't it "No one ever went broke......"

No Text.

[anarchy1999]

26. You win and here it is!

http://www.bartleby.com/59/3/nooneeverwen.html

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people


People can easily be persuaded to accept the most inferior ideas or useless products; attributed to H. L. Mencken. 1


Congrats, you forced me to go find it.

[Karenina]

27. Cardinal Curmudgeon, he.

Paraphrasing... "Love" is what happens between a man and a woman who don't KNOW each other...

[demnan]

28. How fucking true!

Hey give him a break, he married a sick woman late in life.