We have seen that Mencken found government very amusing. He also thought it was good, in certain situations, for discipline and education, which led him to propose, “all authors should be benefited by [imprisonment], and … all other men who devote themselves to telling humanity what [life] is all about.”1 He gives an example in support, “In manner and aspect Cosima [Richard Wagner’s second wife] was far nearer a police sergeant than a sweetie, and life with her must have beefan comparable to going through an earthquake every day, or fleeing endlessly from a posse of lynchers, but the effect upon Wagner was superb.”2
Mencken’s satisfaction with the current state of affairs makes us ask: would he have preferred a libertarian society? But the question is misleading on four levels.
Firstly, decisions are always made at the margin, so the question creates an artificial situation. The question itself, not just the object of its inquiry, is utopian; it is a wholesale error. As Mencken said:
Do I limn utopia? Well, why not? Utopia, like virtue, is a concept shot through with relativity. To men in jail, I daresay, the radio is a boon.3
Secondly, what one finds enjoyable need not be lawful (I do not mean lawful in the legislative sense). A spectator may enjoy something he would never participate in — a libertarian society may be endorsed over all others, without being preferred. We have repeatedly seen Mencken hold this position. For another example, in contrast to the widespread indignant condemnation of war, especially among libertarians, he was against war on many grounds, but never indignantly. In fact, he said, “War naturally sucks in those who can be most profitably spared,” and calculated that based on what the war veterans went on to achieve, “the Civil War cost American Kultur exactly three-fourths of a really valuable man.”4 Atypical fare from an antiwar activist. His description of Bierce’s attitude to war is also autobiographical:
What he got out of [war] was not a sentimental horror of it, but a cynical delight in it. It appeared to him as a sort of magnificent reductio ad absurdum of all romance. The world viewed war as something heroic, glorious, idealistic. Very well, he would show how sordid and filthy it was — how stupid, savage and degrading. But to say this is not to say he disapproved it. On the contrary, he greatly enjoyed the chance its discussion gave him to set forth dramatically what he was always talking about and gloating over: the infinite imbecility of man … What delighted him most in life was the spectacle of human cowardice and folly … Man to him, was the most stupid and ignoble of animals. But at the same time the most amusing. Out of the spectacle of life about him he got an unflagging and Gargantuan joy. The obscene farce of politics delighted him. He was an almost amorous connoisseur of theology and theologians. He howled with mirth whenever he thought of a professor, a doctor or a husband.5
Mencken believed both war and antiwar activism to be futile; that giving people an avocation, vocation, vacation, voice, vote or violence are all just as unlikely to succeed. This outlook is applicable to other all other reforms, from rubbish recycling to water restrictions to road rage.
Thirdly, if, as Mencken thought, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard,”6 then Mencken, in simply stating a case and not righteously demanding agreement, was being doubly libertarian by allowing people to make their own mistakes. This may even be a superior way to communicate the truth: not by stating it, but by outrageously and impotently championing the opposite, arguing that he appreciates laughing at the stupidity of others, as in his comment on war in the previous paragraph. He straightened out the crooks of his time, turning them into excellent straight men for him to bounce off. So although he personally delights in the current state of affairs, if people take his comments to heart, they would not remain orthodox supporters of government. For another example:
As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move towards 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.7
Mencken fawned over government supporters with all sincerity, but this, if listened to, would not make them feel more secure; it would make them blush. He accepted people who did not question, listened to people who could not hear, learnt from the ignorant, and wrote about illiterates, all with sincere amusement. He stuck it to those he was stuck with; he was their adherent. He submitted all he could to them.
Fourthly, Mencken did not believe the libertarian revolution would happen in his lifetime, or that he could possibly contribute towards it. He was not a utopian, so it is fruitless asking what his utopia was. Or, rather, he was living in his utopia, as his praise for the America of his time, which we have already read, is absolute. Here is another example:
All I ask of “good” Americans is that they continue to serve me hereafter, as in the past, as willing laboratory animals. In that role they have great talents. No other country has so many gorgeous frauds and imbeciles as the United States, and in consequence no other country is so amusing. Thus my patriotism is impeccable, though perhaps not orthodox. I love my country as a small boy loves the circus.8
Mencken once hypothesised, “If I had it in my power to put down Prohibition overnight, or to scotch the Fundamentalists, or to hang all Men of Vision, I’d not have to flee from the temptation, for there would be no temptation.”9 But, surely, if he had the option, then there would be far less arrogance and tyranny to ridicule. Therefore, it is either a jest written to express his joy witnessing something he cannot prevent, or a comment made without consideration, the sincerity of which is unproven by demonstrated preference and so remains unconsummated. Mencken’s love of America was unrequited; it was not considered love in the eyes of America. In any case, he thought fighting for the libertarian cause could be much fun. An example:
[T]hink of the noble divertissement that John D. Rockefeller could have got by giving $100,000,000 to the Mormons, first to finance a nation-wide campaign in favour of polygamy, then to buy legislation authorizing it from the State Legislatures, and then to pay for a fight to a finish before the Supreme Court of the United States, with all the leading barristers of the nation for defense. The combat would have been gaudy, thrilling, incomparable.10
Incidentally, this snippet shows us that writing about these things and imagining them can be more amusing, convenient and productive than actually going ahead and doing them. And also, in the sense that Ambrose Bierce defines a novel as, “A short story padded,” so writing about and imagining long drawn out court battles, is a more concise way of communicating what they would entail than going ahead and doing them.
Mencken’s attitude to libertarianism is best summed up when he says:
I do not share [Jefferson’s] belief in the wisdom and rectitude of the common man, but I go with him in his belief that the very commonest of common men has certain inalienable rights … [P]eople mistake my belief for liberty for a belief in the persons whose liberty is menaced … I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.11
These quotes beautifully represent Mencken’s philosophy and spirit. However, they still leave unexplained exactly how he can enjoy so greatly what he detests so much. Is it then true that he does not really detest it? Can there be a happy pessimism? Yes. In fact, in some ways, Mencken’s pessimism makes happiness easier. This is addressed in the next section.
Footnotes- A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 341. [↩]
- Ibid., p. 342; cf. Prejudices: Second Series, p. 241; and Prejudices: Fourth Series, pp. 248-52. [↩]
- A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 195. [↩]
- A Mencken Chrestomathy, pp. 216-18. [↩]
- Ibid., pp. 493-94. For a film version of Bierce at war, see the first 45 minutes of Old Gringo (1989). Critics complain that the battle scenes go on too long and never seem to get anywhere. They don’t realise that that is precisely the point. Most other criticisms of the film are deserved. If Bierce had died 45 minutes into Old Gringo, then it would have been a great film. [↩]
- Ibid., p. 622. [↩]
- On Politics, p. 21. [↩]
- The Gist of Mencken, p. 28. [↩]
- The Impossible H.L. Mencken, p. 682. [↩]
- A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 383. [↩]
- H.L. Mencken, “The Library,” The American Mercury, vol. X11, no. 45 (September 1927), p. 124; The Gist of Mencken, p. 467; and A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 616. [↩]