Mencken's Creed - Classic Or Dud?

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I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind, that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
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I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
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I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty.
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I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
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I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech.
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I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
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I believe in the reality of progress.
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I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:23 (twenty years ago)

I say classic, but then I still wish I had gone to live with Crass when I was 16.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:24 (twenty years ago)

I believe in the reality of progress

I really struggle with this one.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty.

Don't believe this at all. Government, when under rigid legal constraint and chosen by the people it governs, does a better job of protecting and extending liberty than anything else we've tried.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Of course, but so general as to be fairly meaningless.

I wonder if stating your priniciples like this is helpful. I think it probably is. It's nice when arguments get crazily complicated to step back and think about what you fundamentally believe in. But then, the language you inevitably end up using is so general "I believe in freedom", "I believe in truth", that it's just a useless catechism.

― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 13 March 2006 21:53 (twenty years ago)

'I believe in the reality of progress'

I really struggle with this one.

at the time he was writing though, i think it would have been easier to believe that as a 'universal'?

― red flag over st pancras (gareth), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:45 (twenty years ago)

i love mencken.
i know i sound like a skipping record, but it is true.
i agree with about 95% of his creed, though I have SLIGHT trouble with "all government is evil" but only slight..

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:48 (twenty years ago)

That's a helluva manifesto. I agree with him mostly about progress, if I have an issue it's with the truth/honesty binary, plus the possibility that religion was evolutionarily useful to human society at one time. I still mostly agree with him about government. Yeah, Classic.

― I'm thinking six, six, six (noodle vague), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:53 (twenty years ago)

now more than ever.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

not very pomo but I agree.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty.

no. this idea is responsible for a lot of mischief and worse.

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

hope he's wrong here

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech.

me too. mencken would be (wrongly) accused of "hate speech" tpday.

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

or die trying

I believe in the reality of progress.

if he means progress is inevitable, I don't think so anymore

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

I'll drink to that!

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:14 (twenty years ago)

I read "the reality of progress" as him saying that the quality of human life/society can and does improve, not necessarily constantly or inevitably.

― I'm thinking six, six, six (noodle vague), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:20 (twenty years ago)

I think this Mencken guy was in my freshman philosophy seminar.

― Martin Van Buren (Martin Van Buren), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:48 (twenty years ago)

mencken's great but that totally reads like something your annoying stoner friend would fwd you at work or randomly quote from in that "am i right people??" spirit.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:19 (twenty years ago)

mencken was really TOO cynical in some ways, which hurt his later writing - his "all government is evil" creed led him to distrust the likes of lincoln as much as the likes of bryan, he thought the new deal was a sham, took too long to recognize hitler's sheer nastiness. too bad we can't somehow spirit him out of the '30s and land him in 2006.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:23 (twenty years ago)

Mostly classic. I'm happy to criticize govt and democracy, but what else you got? Try lawlessness.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

― Hunter (Hunter), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 03:23 (twenty years ago)

as much as i heart mencken, i still think at times that he unfairly smeared william jennings bryan (who was very conveniently dead and buried when mencken's articles about the scopes trial were published). not that bryan was beyond reproach in any way (he wasn't), or that mencken was not correct in his support of scopes and denunciation of fundamentalism (he was on both points). on the other hand, bryan was a bit more sophisticated than the dumb rube-demagogue cliche that mencken helped to perpetuate.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 03:42 (twenty years ago)

on the other hand, bryan was a bit more sophisticated than the dumb rube-demagogue cliche that mencken helped to perpetuate.

The problem is that Bryan DID degenerate into a rube-demagogue cliche.

But, in general, you're right. There's a new biography by Michael Kazin that tries to make sense of this intensely fascinating, frustrating personage who's been forgotten except for the coiner of one context-free phrase to the lexicon (the cross of gold nonsense).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 03:48 (twenty years ago)

"I'm happy to criticize govt and democracy, but what else you got? Try lawlessness"

Ahahah, you people are not very bright. Government is a beast that cannot be stopped. In order to feed a few hundred thousand homeless people you would enable a monster to wage war whenever the rich deem it necessary to their profits.

― duder, Wednesday, 15 March 2006 18:09 (twenty years ago)

I prefer "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black
flag, and begin to slit throats."

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Thursday, 16 March 2006 03:00 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Strange that the essence of Mencken's creed in 1931 should be "I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie." when 7 years earlier he concluded his brilliant essay "The Art Eternal" with these words:

"Thus the truth about the truth emerges, and with it the truth about lying. Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent, and instinctive; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers life would become a mere syllogism, and hence too metallic to be borne. The man who lies simply submits himself sensibly to the grand sweep and ripple of the cosmic process. The man who seeks and tells the truth is a rebel against the inner nature of all of us."

http://www.mencken.org/files/text/elliott_mencken_01.htm

― norman house, Wednesday, 19 April 2006 11:51 (twenty years ago)

I still prefer "No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 18:36 (twenty years ago)

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