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Notes on Democracy Paperback – October 15, 2008
H.L. Mencken, America's greatest journalist and critic, wrote Notes on Democracy over 80 years ago. His time, the paranoid and intolerant years of World War I, Prohibition and the Scopes trial, is strikingly like our own. Notes isn't just a blast from the past, but also a perceptive and unsentimental report on contemporary life.
Dissident Books is proud to reintroduce this gem of cynicism and clear-thinking to a new generation. Mencken performs a brilliant, merciless and often hilarious vivisection on that most holy of sacred cows: democracy. The new edition is supplemented by extensive annotations that put Mencken's words and ideas in context and expose fascinating details and nuances.
Don't even think about voting until you read this book!
- Print length208 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDissident Books
- Publication dateOctober 15, 2008
- Dimensions5.25 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100977378810
- ISBN-13978-0977378814
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- Publisher : Dissident Books; New edition (October 15, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0977378810
- ISBN-13 : 978-0977378814
- Item Weight : 9.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,485,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #839 in Political Humor (Books)
- #1,900 in Democracy (Books)
- #10,705 in Fiction Satire
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Mencken on many issues was what we refer to today as a libertarian or nineteenth-century liberal--he valued liberty and believed "that any invasion of it is immensely dangerous to the commonweal--especially when that invasion is alleged to have a moral purpose." Inherent, though, in freedom is the freedom to fail, and Mencken understood that most of his countrymen disagreed with him on the value of liberty--he thought that the average person valued security over liberty, was apt to see himself as a member of a group instead of seeing himself as an individual, and was "quite willing to exchange any of the boons of freedom for something he can use."
Whether or not the author agrees, democracy is the best form of governance yet invented, though like all earthly institutions it is not perfect. Mencken notes the pandering even in his day that politicians had to do to stay in office.
And in a democracy in any era, there will be poorly informed voters--to name perhaps the most pernicious myth extant in our era, think of the vast number of souls out there who think that our entitlements do not need to be reformed and that they could easily be shored up if we just taxed the rich more. Others simply lack the wisdom to know who would be a good elected official--Mencken made fun of the voters in the 1920 election who voted against the Democratic ticket because Cox was divorced and Wilson married "too soon" after the death of his first wife. One could draw a straight line to modern voters who were swayed because a candidate forcefully kissed his wife on the platform at his nominating convention or because a prospective candidate had a perfect crease on his pant leg.
As we enter another fall campaign, though, we have the opportunity to change course and should remember Mencken's observation that the people really are sovereign and really can get what they want at the ballot box if they want it badly enough. Let's hope that in 2012 people realize we have gone (much, much) too far in the direction of security at the expense of liberty, recall that Benjamin Franklin thought that excessive public debt was the chief threat to our keeping our republic, and vote for those who understand that economic liberty is indispensable to long-term prosperity and thus indispensable to military strength.
Nevertheless, he feels it is his duty as a man of intellectual integrity to critique democracy in its own terms: it's defense of liberty and it's ability to EFFECTIVELY impose morality on it's own citizens.
Mencken was active during the prohibition era and the Scopes trial, to extremely plain failures of government to impose "Puritan" morality on the masses, and making a circus of it meanwhile.
This is why Mencken says that democracy is "the art of governing the circus form the monkey cage." This is something he genuinely believes, but as a social critic, enjoys as a source of material.
The Mises Institute was selling this for $1. I have of late been questioning whether a democratic republic is a viable governmental form. And given the deplorable state of our own republic, I thought it was worth a read.
- Positives
At his best, Mencken is extremely erudite and informed of the politics at his time. At times, he is very insightful and scathingly humorous.
His central thesis is that it is stupid to think that everyone is equal and deserves an equal say in how laws should be drafted - and I cannot disagree. As he puts it in the first paragraph, democracy proposes that, "What has baffled statesmen is to be solved by the people, instantly and by a seraphic intuition."
The endnotes to this volume are extensive and would make this work accessible even to an adolescent.
- Negatives
Regretfully, Mencken's intelligence and wit have led him to pride, which had led to his liberal elitism. As another reader has noted, his constant attacks on his "inferiors" - basically caricatures of city- and country- dwellers - is tiresome. Among his other errors is his admiration for Freud, Nietzsche, and even the eugenicist Thomas Huxley. (An endnote amazingly tells us that "Mencken credited Huxley for giving order to his ideas and being a major influence on his writings".) As a relatively minor point, he believes that vaccines are healthy - and seemingly believes in forced vaccinations - while he has a bizarre hatred of osteopathy and chiropractic.
His greatest errors are those against the Faith - in particular his denunciations of St. Paul, which nearly made me put down the book.
- Final Thoughts
If you are looking to Mencken for a libertarian or conservative critique of democracy, look elsewhere. Mencken is the consummate liberal: elitist, self-satisfied, totalitarian, fearful of the country, anti-Christian, and snarky - in fact, in his last chapter, he reveals to us that he actually likes democracy, because it gives him something to mock.
However, his main points are worth considering, especially for those who believe that democracy is the greatest form of government. If you choose to read this book, I would suggest skipping all of the chapters except the first in part I: this will help you to avoid much of the tiresome elitism and anti-Christianity.
Interestingly, Mencken is depicted in *Inherit the Wind*, the play about the Scopes trial (which he covered). In that play, he is criticized somewhat harshly, but now that I have read the book, I realize that he was not criticized harshly enough.
I am currently reading Liberty, the God That Failed: Policing the Sacred and Constructing the Myths of the Secular State, from Locke to Obama , which is a critique of democracy from a more Catholic perspective.
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No holds barred, provocative, laugh out loud account of man's gullibility and stupidities
Highly relevant in todays PC times