Advice To Young Men

What did Ed Caudill call H. L. Mencken?

A "verbally raucous cynic, deft with language, and sharp with criticism."

Who loved Mencken?

Rebellious students.

Who despised Mencken?

Religious fundamentalists and political conservatives.

What was the social standing of Mencken's family in Baltimore?

Well-to-do.

What nickname would Mencken eventually become known by?

The "Sage of Baltimore."

What was Mencken's first job as a reporter?

For the Baltimore Morning Herald.

What other newspaper did Mencken work for?

The Baltimore Sun.

What magazines did Mencken edit or contribute to?

Smart Set and American Mercury.

What was notable about the readership of American Mercury at its peak?

It exceeded that of Harper's and The Atlantic.

What was the primary source of news for most Americans in the 1920s?

Newspapers.

How were newspapers often viewed in the 1920s?

As widely reliable sources of truth that would frequently call out political corruption and injustice.

What role did Mencken relish in this setting?

Truth-teller and public intellectual.

What was Mencken a relentless critic of?

Moral hypocrisy, censorship, and cultural puritanism.

Who did Mencken encourage to defend John Scopes?

Clarence Darrow.

What was the name of the trial in which Scopes was prosecuted?

The Scopes Monkey Trial.

What was Scopes prosecuted for?

Teaching evolution in a Tennessee school.

What act of public courage did Mencken deliberately undertake?

He had himself arrested for selling The American Mercury.

To whom did Mencken sell the magazine that led to his arrest?

The Rev. J. Franklin Chase.

What was the Rev. J. Franklin Chase's position on certain texts?

He routinely challenged the publication and distribution of texts he deemed "obscene."

What was the outcome of Mencken's arrest?

He won the case.

What did Mencken's refusal to bow to political pressures help ensure?

His reputation as a fierce defender of the freedom of expression without restriction.

Who was Mencken's idol?

Mark Twain.

Besides being caustic and cynical, what other qualities did Mencken's writing often possess?

Deeply researched and frequently hilarious.

What was Mencken an expert with?

Language.

What was the title of Mencken's academic study of American English?

The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States.

How was The American Language received?

Commercially and critically successful.

What aspect of his work made Mencken a household name?

His popular journalism.

How influential was Mencken compared to other writers of the period?

As influential as any novelist or poet of the period in helping make the 1920s "roar."

What did readers across the country devour of Mencken's?

His cultural criticism and his satirical essays.

What range of subjects did Mencken's satirical essays take on?

From the flaws in "common sense" ideas to the consequences of obediently following the status quo.

What did writers like Mencken demonstrate about the Jazz Age, known as a period of excess?

That there were also authors producing provocative writing and thinking.

What did Mencken's writing aim to do to the country?

"Sting [the country] to thought."

According to Mencken, what is the most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air?

The reputation of being well to do.

According to Mencken, what is the irresistible impulse in ninety-nine per cent of all democrats towards wealth?

To crook the knee, to defer humbly to the power that goes with it, to see all sorts of high merits in the man who has it.

What kind of envy does Mencken say goes with the "pliant neck" towards wealth?

Envy somehow purged of all menace.

How does the "inferior man" behave towards the man with money in many banks, according to Mencken?

He is afraid to do evil or even think evil of him in any patent and offensive way.

What does the "inferior man" incessantly rant against?

Capital as an abstraction.

How does the "inferior man" behave in the presence of the concrete capitalist?

Singularly fawning.

According to Mencken, what does the "inferior man" yearn for regarding the capitalist?

A chance to tap the capitalist's purse.

Why does the "inferior man" turn to politeness and try to cajole the capitalist?

Because he knows he is too craven and stupid to do it by force of arms.

According to Mencken, what happens when one gives out news of financial success or dubious dealings?

One's shabbiness becomes a charming eccentricity, one's judgment of wines is valued, and one's politics are respected.

According to Mencken, what never gets a fair chance?

The man who is thought to be poor.

What does Mencken say no one has for a poor man's good opinion?

Any active desire.

What principle did Mencken discover early in life and has used ever since?

Getting more out of people by having the reputation of being well-heeled.

What did Mencken say being "well-heeled" got him more of than?

Being decent, dazzling with sagacity, hard industry, or singular personal beauty.

What familiar doctrine does Mencken say he distrusts more as he grows older?

That age brings wisdom.

What is Mencken's honest belief about his current wisdom compared to his past?

He is no wiser today than five or ten years ago, and often suspects he is appreciably less wise.

What can women do to prevail over Mencken now that would have caused him to reject them at thirty-five?

Devices.

What does Mencken say he is becoming an easier mark for?

Male swindlers.

What does Mencken predict he will be doing at fifty?

Joining clubs and buying Mexican mine stock.

What does Mencken believe is the truth about a man's sagacity over time?

Every man goes up-hill to a certain point, and then begins sliding down again.

What is Mencken's assessment of nearly all the old fellows he knows?

They are more or less balmy.

Theoretically, why should older men be wiser than younger men?

Because of their greater experience.

What does Mencken observe about old men and wisdom/folly?

They seem to take on folly faster than they take on wisdom.

According to Mencken, what is a man of thirty-five or thirty-eight almost?

Woman-proof.

According to Mencken, by what age is a man quite as easy as a Yale sophomore in terms of susceptibility?

Fifty.

What example does Mencken use to illustrate the decay of intelligence on other planes?

The Supreme Court of the United States.

What characteristic does Mencken say it would be difficult to imagine in a committee of young men (thirty or thirty-five) that he sees in the Supreme Court?

Unbroken childishness, ignorance, and lack of humor.

What does Mencken estimate is the average age of the learned justices?

Well beyond sixty.

What are the learned justices supposed to be characterized by?

Finished and mellowed sagacity.

What does Mencken say about the learned justices' knowledge of ordinary principles of justice?

It often turns out to be extremely meager.

When the learned justices address a great case, what does Mencken say their reasoning powers are usually equal to?

Those of a respectable Pullman conductor.

What does Mencken say is the theme of some of the loosest thinking in ethics?

Duty.

What do practically all writers on ethics agree that the individual owes to the race?

Certain unescapable duties, such as engaging in productive labor and marrying and begetting offspring.

What is the common argument used to support the idea of these unescapable duties?

That if all men neglected such duties the race would perish.

How does Mencken characterize the logic of this argument?

Hollow enough to be worthy of college professors.

What does Mencken say this logic confuses?

The conventionality, pusillanimity, and lack of imagination of the majority with the duty of all men.

What does Mencken say there is not the slightest ground for assuming?

That all men will ever neglect these alleged duties.

What kind of majority will always remain, according to Mencken?

A safe majority that is willing to do whatever is ordained, accepts the government, obeys laws, and supports its theory.

According to Mencken, what does this majority comprise?

Those who render nothing save their obedience, not those who render the highest and most intelligent services to the race.

For the man who differs from the "inert and well-regimented mass," what does Mencken say about duties?

There are no duties per se.

According to Mencken, what is of vastly more value than what the majority is willing to do?

What the differing man is spontaneously inclined to do.

What does Mencken call "duty-in-itself"?

A mere chimera of ethical theorists.

According to Mencken, what furthers human progress?

Aberration, not conformity.

What does Mencken say the concept of duty is a function of?

Inferiority.

To whom does the concept of duty naturally belong, according to Mencken?

Only to timorous and incompetent men.

Even on the level of timorous and incompetent men, what does Mencken say duty remains largely?

A self-delusion, a soothing apparition, a euphemism for necessity.

What happens when a man succumbs to duty, according to Mencken?

He merely succumbs to the habit and inclination of other men.

What do the collective interests of other men invariably pull against?

The individual interests of the man who succumbs to duty.

According to Mencken, who can withstand the pull of a whole nation?

Only the miraculous man.

What do these brief essays by Mencken form part of?

A larger work in which he uses satire to poke at moral and political hypocrisies of the time.

What is satire as a literary genre?

A genre in which an author uses irony or exaggeration to highlight absurdities or inconsistencies within a belief or individual.

What is crucial about the source material for satire?

It takes something that actually exists and uses that as the source of its humor and criticism.

What does satire try to show about something ridiculous?

How ridiculous it is by tactically highlighting, and sometimes amplifying, its contradictory elements.

What popular form of writing does Mencken use to satirize "common sense" advice?

An advice column.

What fundamental contradiction does Mencken begin his satire by pointing out?

Many are advised to cultivate virtue before wealth, yet wealth is often more valuable in social situations.

According to Mencken, what does one's wealth often become in social situations?

One's character.

What does this reveal about how America approaches social class, according to Mencken?

Something quite alarming.

How are young people often brought up regarding behavior and wealth?

To value virtuous behavior.

What does actual experience reveal about "virtuous behavior" in relation to wealth, according to Mencken?

It is a somewhat fluid concept, given how wealthy people are treated.

Even if politeness towards the wealthy is self-serving, what point does it reinforce about Jazz Age morality?

Ethical concerns usually "crook the knee" to financial considerations.

What "common sense" idea does Mencken examine in "The Venerable Examined"?

Whether age actually equals wisdom.

What is Mencken's personal feeling about age and his decision-making?

He feels that age has actually compromised his decision-making.

What institution does Mencken suggest might also be affected by the potential decline of wisdom with age?

The justices of the United States Supreme Court.

What were Mencken's age and the age of the youngest Supreme Court Justice (Harlan Fiske Stone) in 1922?

Mencken was forty-two, and Stone was fifty.

Is Mencken's assessment of his own mental abilities meant to suggest an automatic decline with age?

No.

What is the purpose of Mencken's wry assessment of his own mental abilities?

An indirect way of criticizing the Supreme Court and poking holes in the idea that age brings wisdom.

What supposedly inarguable moral principle does Mencken challenge in the third essay?

That all people have duties that they must follow.

How does Mencken typically view anything considered "obvious"?

Suspiciously.

What does Mencken argue that "duty" actually is?

Just another form of conformity.