Conservatism and Libertarians — MC Part 15

Libertarians often show that governments of the past that are today considered to be tyrannical and unpopular, even by the establishment, share the same characteristics with popular governments today that are considered to be free and popular. With this argument they hope to bring about a widespread enlightenment, which will lead to a more just, free and prosperous society. But their observation also teaches something quite different, which libertarians often fail to acknowledge. As Mencken pointed out:

The fact is that some of the things that men and women have desired most ardently for thousands of years are not nearer realization to-day than they were in the time of Rameses, and that there is not the slightest reason for believing that they will lose their coyness on any near to-morrow. Plans for hurrying them on have been tried since the beginning; plans for forcing them overnight are in copious and antagonistic operation to-day; and yet they continue to hold off and elude us, and the chances are that they will keep on holding off and eluding us.¹

Most libertarians I have come across have not attempted to comprehend Mencken. They claim to have read him, profess to be a fan and often repeat their favourite passages; but they do not understand his conservatism. (These same libertarians often criticise non-libertarian fans of Mencken for not understanding his libertarianism.)

Mencken was one of the most popular libertarians ever. Even those who disagreed with his ideas praised his prose. For example, during WW2, when his politics were silenced, he wrote and got published, among many other things, two volumes of autobiographical memoirs. These were allowed to be printed by the wartime censors, and even had good sales during the war. In addition, pocket-sized but full-length Armed Services Editions were printed in massive numbers and distributed freely to soldiers at the expense of the government, who paid Mencken.

His influence was felt in a variety of places, from the study of the American language to the history of the bathtub, criticism to censorship, summariser of popular opinion to exemplar of minority opinion, editor to essayist, talent scout to publishing advisor, and much more, including romances ranging from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which he inspired by his example and helped to get published, to Ask the Dust, which was written to impress him and the recent (2006) film of which stars him, to Elmer Gantry, which was dedicated to him. He was considered worthy of being the only speaker alongside FDR at an event during FDR’s Presidency. He successfully rejected a Pulitzer Prize that wasn’t even his; however, he was not so successful with the Nobel Prize.²

Despite all this, Mencken’s libertarian ideas never caught on and he never thought they would. Today, most libertarians — all of whom are inferior writers in inferior positions to Mencken — fail to speculate how to improve upon him, yet generally expect superior results. This is inexcusable, since, as Mencken said of his own archiving and writing, “Not many American authors will ever leave a more complete record … There is, indeed, probably no trace in history of a writer who left more careful accounts of himself and his contemporaries.”³ Even so, one need not read much Mencken to understand him, for he was as consistent as can be⁴ and quite repetititive. Besides, he was hardly the only libertarian who failed to popularise libertarianism; he was just very honest, humble and self-aware in admitting it without hesitation, cessation or shame.⁵

Occasionally Mencken did have “a romantic moment,”⁶ a fit of optimistic supposedly constructive advice. One example is worth addressing to prevent any false hope. He once said, “it is quite impossible to kill a passion by arguing against it. The way to kill it is to give rein under unfavorable and dispiriting conditions — to bring it down, by slow stages, to the estate of an absurdity and a horror.”⁷ But absurdities and horrors of governments — including broken promises, wars, inflations, depressions and elections — have mostly reinforced popular misconceptions, and made the truth appear even more absurd to the ignorant.⁸ So his remark is incorrect. Also, showing the absurdity of something somewhat resembles an argument, yet he said that argument cannot kill passion. So his remark is also tautological or oxymoronic.

Increased familiarity with Mencken’s conservatism may lead to fewer libertarians, for many are emotionally committed to the success of activism — they live in hope. But because activism is so rarely successful this is not such a loss, as perhaps more focus will be put into writing as an art, which will last longer than any more emotionally-fuelled shorter-term activism. But that is probably misleading, since conservative libertarians often rush their writings and non-conservative libertarians have written many impressive and lasting pieces, both in the heat of the moment and in a calm calculated way for long-term deliverance.

Simply put (with less speculative empirical wrangling): the advantage of conservatism is that there is no real disappointment; the disadvantage of it, in terms of popularity, is that most people want to be in a situation where they can be disappointed, because they have the kind of mind that is currently disappointed and with the same mindset hope to escape it — disappointment fuels them. As Mencken said of those who remain optimists, “A man who has throttled a bad impulse has at least some consolation in his agonies, but a man who has throttled a good one is in a bad way indeed.”⁹

But this, obviously, only applies to one who believes that “goodness”, especially in the form of activism, can actually count, in the sense that being helpful to others will be considered so in the opinion of these same others also. This is not to say that good people do things for approval, but rather that if they are trying to help someone who does not feel helped by their action, then perhaps no help has taken place.

I’m not saying that much of Mencken’s work is incompatible with indignation; only that he was not indignant personally. In fact, as he could see, “the man who is able to think things out for himself … even if he is not romantic personally … is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”¹⁰ The same aptness to spread discontent applies when independent thinking takes the form of an argument against romanticism, or at least suggests the viability of an alternative – however, such “formerly romantic” minds will probably revert soon after.

There is nothing stopping conservatives from being activists. Successful communication of ideas and inducing change may not be a primary incentive of conservatives, but there are plenty of others reasons for activism, even if activism is not the best word for it. The conservative libertarian is not an enemy of the romantic libertarian. They may not share the same dreams and nightmares, but they do have a Platonic relationship. It is unlikely they would ever be hung alongside each other, but the conservative would definitely be nearby, enjoying the puppet-show.

And the indignant activism of libertarians is quite different to that of statists. In a passage written ostensibly to criticise indignant activists, Mencken’s does not fully differentiate between indignant libertarian activists and conservative libertarian non-activists like himself:

What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, an all-embracing tolerance — in brief, what is commonly called good sportsmanship. Such a man is not to be mistaken for one who shirks the hard knocks of life. On the contrary, he is frequently an eager gladiator, vastly enjoying opposition. But when he fights he fights in the manner of a gentleman fighting a duel, not that of a longshoreman clearing out a waterfront saloon.¹¹

Mencken’s prose was often harsh, but he always defending the rights of his ideological opponents to put forward their case. He was so tolerant of people criticising him that he organised the publication of a book of such criticisms without any counterargument defending himself.¹² His tolerance, which was melded with his understanding that value is subjective, is also shown in the following passage. When asked to give advice to someone who doubted the truth of received opinion, but worried that continued doubting would never provide the kind of satisfaction experienced as a believer, Mencken commented:

[Are the thrills of the conservative] equal, as a maker of anything rationally describable as happiness, to the comfort and security of the man of faith? … The skeptic … will say yes; the believer will say no. There you have it.¹³

In any case, Mencken’s honest negativity provides libertarians with the strongest defence — short of imprisoning, maiming or killing their accusers and not believing that will make any difference anyway — against being derided as optimistic, romantic, uncritical, utopian, and having an overgenerously positive view of man. Instead of merely claiming that government is non-existent, impossible, criminal and destructive, it allows libertarians to take the extra step and become truly radical, by showing government as empty romanticism, and libertarianism, not as a competing romanticism, but as something distinct.

1. Prejudices: Second Series, pp. 213-14. Similarly, George Jean Nathan said, in his The House of Satan (London: Knopf, 1926), p. 99:

   Over a period of eighty years, hundreds of critics have been laboring to improve the taste of the American people in music, literature, drama and politics. And today, as a result, Nevin, Tobani and Tosti are program favorites over Brahms, Beethoven and Bach; James Oliver Curwood is thirty thousand times more popular than James Branch Cabell; Anne Nichols is fifty thousand times more popular than Hauptmann; and Calvin Coolidge is President of the United States.

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2. A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 367. [↩]
3. Diary of H.L. Mencken, pp. 207, 382. [↩]
4. Mencken was so consistent that his arguments occasionally overlapped — that is, his attitude was consistent even when his interpretations were inconsistent. In other words, whatever the method, the results were always the same. There are some examples where “cf.” is mentioned in the footnotes of this essay. [↩]
5. As was Ludwig von Mises, who said in his Memoirs, trans. Arlene Oost-Zinner (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009), p. 98:

   From time to time I entertained the hope that my writings would bear practical fruit and show the way for policy. I have always looked for evidence of a change in ideology. But I never actually deceived myself; my theories explain, but cannot slow the decline of a great civilization. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.

   It is amusing to compare this passage with the yearly reports, fundraising paraphernalia and written histories of many think tanks. For more on Mises’s conservatism, see also the two appendices of this essay. [↩]

6. For an instance of where Mencken admits having a romantic moment that he wished to correct, see A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 432-33. [↩]
7. Ibid., p. 33. Ludwig von Mises argued the opposite in Bureaucracy (Grove City, PA: Libertarian Press, 1983), pp. 118-19:

   [S]atirical books [have failed to change "the socialists"]. Some of the most eminent writers of the nineteenth century — Balzac, Dickens, Gogol, de Maupassant, Courteline — have struck devastating blows against bureaucratism. Alduous Huxley was even courageous enough to make socialism’s dreamed paradise the target of his sardonic irony. The public was delighted. But his readers rushed nonetheless to apply for government jobs.

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8. Even when poor policies have been identified, it still does not necessarily make a difference. For example, Andrew Dickson White, Fiat Money Inflation in France (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1933), pp. 5-7:

   It would be a great mistake to suppose that the statesmen of France, or the French people, were ignorant of the dangers in issuing irredeemable paper money. No matter how skillfully the bright side of such a currency was exhibited, all thoughtful men in France remembered its dark side. They knew too well, from that ruinous experience, seventy years before, in John Law’s time, the difficulties and dangers of a currency not well based and controlled. They had then learned how easy it is to issue it; how difficult it is to check its overissue; how seductively it leads to the absorption of the means of the workingmen and men of small fortunes; how heavily it falls on all those living on fixed incomes, salaries or wages; how securely it creates on the ruins of the prosperity of all men of meagre means a class of debauched speculators, the most injurious class that a nation can harbor, — more injurious, indeed, than professional criminals whom the law recognizes and can throttle; how it stimulates overproduction at first and leaves every industry flaccid afterward; how it breaks down thrift and develops political and social immorality. All this France had been thoroughly taught by experience. Many then living had felt the result of such an experiment — the issues of paper money under John Law …; and there were then sitting in the National Assembly of France many who owed the poverty of their families to those issues of paper. Hardly a man in the country who had not heard those who issued it cursed as the authors of the most frightful catastrophe France had then experienced. …

   It was no mere attempt at theatrical display, but a natural impulse, which led a thoughtful statesman, during the debate, to hold up a piece of that old paper money and to declare that it was stained with the blood and tears of their fathers …

   And it would also be a mistake to suppose that the National Assembly, which discussed this matter, was composed of mere wild revolutionists; no inference could be more wide of the fact. Whatever may have been the character of the men who legislated for France afterward, no thoughtful student of history can deny, despite all the arguments and sneers of reactionary statesmen and historians, that few more keen-sighted legislative bodies have ever met than this first French Constitutional Assembly. In it were such men as Sieyès, Bailly, Necker, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, DuPont de Nemours and a multitude of others who, in various sciences and in the political world, had already shown and were destined afterward to show themselves among the strongest and shrewdest men that Europe has yet seen. …

   Oratory prevailed over science and experience. In April, 1790, came the final decree to issue four hundred millions of livres in paper money …”

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9. A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 162. [↩]
10. Ibid., p. 145. To believe otherwise is to say that readers agree with everything they read, and authors always say the same as their readers. Similarly, George Jean Nathan said, “To argue … that this or that critic is purely destructive is to imply that all his reading adherents are also of purely destructive tendencies.” [From his Testament of a Critic (New York: Knopf, 1931), p. 19; see also pp. 50-53.] And Bernard Shaw said,

    Just as reading about crime does not make us criminals, but rather causes any propensities we may have had in that direction to waste themselves harmlessly through the imagination, so reading about high virtues does not make us heroes and heroines; it wastes our heroic impulse in precisely the same manner. Therefore it is very questionable whether reading rooms should contain any good books. Rather they should be stocked with the Newgate Calendar, detective stories, lives of Cartouche, Lacenaire, Charles Peace, Moll Flanders and all the most infamous characters in fact or fiction. And when the readers, in the disgust and satiety produced by such literature, go to the reading-room librarian and say “For heaven’s sake give me a book about a saint or a hero: I am sick to death of these stupid malefactors,” it should be the duty of that librarian to say, “No my son (or my daughter, as the case may be): the proper sphere of virtue is the living world. Go out and do good until you feel wicked again. Then come back to me; and I will discharge all your evil impulses for you without hurting anyone by a batch of thoroughly bad books.” Moral: do not listen to the people who wish to purify public bookshelves: they are sitters on safety valves.

    [Bernard Shaw, "Neglected Aspects of Public Libraries," The New Republic, vol. XXIX, no. 368 (December 21, 1921), p. 97.] [↩]

11. Ibid., p. 163. [↩]
12. H.L. Mencken, Menckeniana: A Schimpflexikon (New York: Octagon Books, 1977). [↩]
13. H.L. Mencken on Religion, p. 37. See also, Minority Report, p. 141: “It seems to me that the gain to truth that [the loss of faith] involves is trivial when set beside the damage to the individual. To be sure, he is also improved, but he is almost wrecked in the process.” [↩]