[Peace-discuss] H.L. Mencken

[C. G. Estabrook]

Why is it so important to believe that Bush is a moron?  He obviously 
isn't -- e.g., he went to as good a school as you: were you at school 
with many morons?  Is it that he seems less threatening that way?

One thing Mencken ignored in his estimate of the American populace is 
the one great invention of American society -- public relations.  A 
greater percentage of US GDP is devoted to forming the American mind -- 
"marketing," in all its forms -- than in any other country.  The result 
is a sort of more or less willing control that no 20th-century 
totalitarianism could achieve.

Yes, the FF were elitists, but elitism is wrong, and the Enlightenment 
contained the seeds of its destruction, perhaps most evident in the 
conflicted Jefferson -- "all men are created equal..." (Of course, as 
the Lukan passage indicates, historically the real enemy of elitism is 
Christianity, as Jefferson recognized in his bible.)

In his later years, observing what was happening, Jefferson had rather 
serious concerns about the fate of the democratic experiment. He feared 
the rise of a new form of absolutism that was more ominous than what had 
been overthrown in the American Revolution, in which he was of course a 
leader. Jefferson distinguished in his later years between what he 
called "aristocrats" and "democrats." The aristocrats are "those who 
fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into 
the hands of the higher classes." The democrats, in contrast, "identify 
with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as 
the honest and safe depository of the public interest, if not always the 
most wise." The aristocrats of his day were the advocates of the rising 
capitalist state, which Jefferson regarded with much disdain, clearly 
recognizing the quite obvious contradiction between democracy and 
capitalism, or more accurately what we might call really existing 
capitalism, that is, guided and subsidized by powerful developmental 
states, as it was in England and the U.S. and indeed everywhere else.

Mencken (and the Pharisee) saw himself as such an aristocrat. --CGE

John W. wrote:
> At 01:09 PM 3/31/2008, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> It's more comforting to think that Bush is a moron -- he isn't --
> 
> You and I will always disagree on that, I guess.  I'll concede, 
> reluctantly, that some of Bush's HANDLERS are not morons, although one 
> could convincingly argue that ANYONE who is more concerned about 
> short-term profits than about the long-term survival of the planet is a 
> moron of incalculable dimensions.  But Bush himself is most definitely a 
> moron by any definition.  He's absolutely incapable of nuanced thought, 
> as he has demonstrated on any number of occasions.  "Big Business 
> good....Evildoers bad."  He's a Neanderthal, a Frankenstein monster.
> 
> 
>> than to admit that we are responsible for the crimes of the American 
>> government.  Elite interests, contrary to those of most of us, are 
>> "most peculiarly attended to" (Adam Smith's phrase), and we remain 
>> quiet, behind a false front of democratic forms without substance.
> 
> I'll concede that we in America exist behind a false front of democratic 
> forms without (much) substance, and that most citizens are complicit by 
> their silence.  Does that complicity not represent "the inner soul of 
> the people", as Mencken said?  Perhaps the average citizen's ignorance 
> is willful, arising from fear.  You're still making Mencken's point.
> 
> 
>> Mencken's contempt for the idea of democracy (and perhaps his 
>> admiration for the "first-rate man" with the "force of his 
>> personality" -- what was elsewhere called "the leadership principle") 
>> was bound up with his admiration for German society, in both its 
>> imperial and national socialist forms.
> 
> I'll concede, having read the Wikipedia entry, that Mencken was 
> something of an elitist, and was influenced by certain German 
> philosophers of the day.  But as an elitist he's in some very good 
> company - Socrates and Plato, most of our nation's Founding Fathers, and 
> W.E.B. DuBois, to name just a few political philosophers off the top of 
> my head.  You'll probably disagree with me about the Founding Fathers.
> 
> In practice just about everyone is an elitist, and they all think that 
> THEY occupy a position among the elite.  :-P
> 
> 
>> Mencken seems to occupy the position of the famous Pharisee of Luke 
>> 18.  --CGE
> 
> And you don't?  Hahahaha!  (I assume you're referring to verses 10-14.)  
> Thanks for the laugh there at the end, Carl.  :-P
> 
> 
> 
>> John W. wrote:
>>
>>> In searching for the source of this quote - "No one ever went broke 
>>> by underestimating the intelligence of the American people" (a nice 
>>> double negative in its own right) - I came across this gem by Mencken:
>>>
>>>     "The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before
>>>     small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way
>>>     through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality.
>>>     But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged
>>>     chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality
>>>     cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man
>>>     who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre ­ the man who
>>>     can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a
>>>     virtual vacuum.
>>>
>>>     "The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy
>>>     is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the
>>>     inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some
>>>     great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their
>>>     heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a
>>>     downright moron." (/Baltimore Evening Sun/, July 26, 1920)
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank goodness we haven't reached that point YET in America, huh?  :-p