Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema crdbronx at erols.com
Sun Sep 1 12:22:40 PDT 2002


Mencken had many virtues, but also was, as Carrol points out, quite benightedly anti-Jewish, and also, though ambivalently, racist. Check out his diary. All these qualities come through in it. Moreover, his reputation for anti-religious enlightenment, though deserved in many ways, needs careful examination. He tended to go somewhat light on Catholicism, mostly because he saw the temperance movement and prohibition as anti-Catholic (It was.) and the Church as an ally against them.

Basically, he wasn’t much of a thinker. He was, among other things, an absurdly committed laissez-fairist and privatizer. At one point he opposed sidewalks, as a matter of policy, because they were a public service.

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema

-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20020901/0b24bdee/attachment.htm>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list