Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Sep 1 12:41:05 PDT 2002


Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:


>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.

Of course he wasn't a thinker - he was a journalist! And I'm well aware of his numerous hateful shortcomings. But like I said, he was a great polemicist and funny as hell. Why oh why must the left (which of course doesn't exist in the Coxian orthodoxy) ceaselessly invoke all the familiar pieties?

Doug



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