Am sure many of you will disagree but whatever the intent of Mencken, this was a funny guy. Let’s hear what he says about husbands
In other words, the typical husband is a second-rater, and no one is better aware of it than his wife. He is, taking averages, one who has been loved, as the saying goes, by but one woman, and then only as a second, third or nth choice. If any other woman had ever loved him, as the idiom has it, she would have married him and so made him ineligible for his present happiness. But the average bachelor is the list first choice of at least some of them. He represents the unattainable and hence admirable; the husband is the attained and disdained.
I am almost certain there was a riot among his friends when this book came out.
Funny guy. I like his style.
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Noel, when I read these quotes, it seems to me he is writing about the culture for which men were raised in. A culture that glorifies and worships hypermasculinity.
However, I wonder if you were aware that he was a racist?
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Just read that, too.
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Here you go: From Wikipedia: Mencken also wrote: “I admit freely enough that, by careful breeding, supervision of environment and education, extending over many generations, it might be possible to make an appreciable improvement in the stock of the American negro, for example, but I must maintain that this enterprise would be a ridiculous waste of energy, for there is a high-caste white stock ready at hand, and it is inconceivable that the negro stock, however carefully it might be nurtured, could ever even remotely approach it. The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.” [35] Sieg Heil! Mein Fuhrer!
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I am reading the wiki article. The one place he was right, I think, is the comment on democracy, to wit
and if that doesn’t describe Bush, nothing can.
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Right on there. If we Americans are lucky, we may get Jeb Bush as our next President and the idiocy can continue on. The racism of Mencken weakens him greatly in my opinion. Hell, Hitler had some awesome ideas for getting trains to run on time and provided decent health care for members of the Nazi Party. Still, though, his bigotry and racism overshadow it all. Blatant dislike of blacks and talking about them in such a dehumanizing way have cast a deep shadow over Mencken for me.
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I feel you. I sympathise with every man for his weaknesses and misjudgments but consider their ideas, if he writes something I agree with, that is the extent of our relationship.
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Well put.
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I am just reading his about page.
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Noel, I’m always appreciative that you post quotes like these because I like to learn about these people. I wanted to get an idea where he was coming from with regard to his writings about men and how they were received by his own sex. But clearly he was a product of the culture he wrote about.
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I second all you’ve said, Victoria. The quotes you post, Mak, always enlighten and always increase my knowledge of other people and other ways of looking at the world. Thanks, my friend. 🙂
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Thanks fellow prophet.
Sharing is living. I may not agree with what the author is saying but when we all consider it, we arrive at different ways of seeing the world.
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As long as we all eventually come to the conclusion that there is no god but the Golden Boot and you and I are his last prophets, I’m down with anything. 🙂
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I think we should start recruiting evangelists.
Victoria, John, Ark, Arch, Kate- they should start doing some ass kicking
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Ass-kickers for the Golden Boot! Awesome!
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We want people kicking ass wherever they are
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For most of the people I read, I read about them much much later, maybe if a question is raised about his character. Take the case of Percy Shelley Bysshe, I read about him much later after I fell in love with his The Necessity of Atheism .
In the case of Mencken, and with the above quotation, if one reads much further, he isn’t talking about your commonplace bachelor. He gives the example of Kant, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer and Nietzsche though all these men had serious women issues and faults them for not having offspring to take after them.
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So what I am gathering then is that these guys felt like they married down, unable to attract the “woman of their dreams”?
Also, I’ve learned a little bit about life through the years, and a priority for me is to get to know someone first before falling in love with them. 😉 😛
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In his view, it is the women who married below their stations not the men. Unless he doesn’t mean what he says, his opinion on men’s intelligence generally was as low as mine on
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Is there a chance this guy was operating in a heightened state of parody, always in “character,” lambasting everything with carefully thought-through nonsense… for shits and giggles?
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I think it’s quite possible John. Maybe not everything he wrote, but people who write satire/parody, their intent can be misunderstood. Just ask the Divine One. 😀
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Victoria, just as I have told John, he could have been making fun at some point but not all the time. Some of his ideas actually make sense
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Yes, I agree, and I think humans have a weakness in that someone (say leaders and gurus) who may have a great ideas get praised and worshiped despite their obvious short-comings and character flaws.
What I appreciate about you, Noel, is that you focus on the idea being presented not the person who came up with the idea. I think the world would be a better place if more people had that trait, and there sure as hell would be a lot less religion.
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Having known a few mad men who everyone in the village thought were really bad guys as friends, I have learnt to give everyone a hearing. Even ab asshole like SOM I gave a chance until I decided he was a prick and a dimwit
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A dimwitted fly for whom I’ve woven a web. He’ll bite. Won’t be able to not. And then, his entire personality will change!
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I can’t wait for that. I am looking forward to a transformed SOM and CS. That will be my best day
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I’m just pissed I didn’t think of it earlier. I only moderate comments to give clowns like those dorks a taste of their own medicine. those guy’s are the only one’s I simply delete, but, now, that’s gonna change. Hee Haw!
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CS can still comment freely, i think each market needs it madman
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I’m my own mad man. And my own spider. 🙂
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I need an extra one to confirm am not really that mad
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You gots ’em. Though arch and I kinda scare him off, I do believe.
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Arch keeps him in check. He was here commenting on the alcohol and women post and Arch must have opened the door quite wide he fell off
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Yes. Arch jabbed and CS ducked out before his nose got bloody. He’s SUCH a little c*ck teaser, that one.
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He’s a misunderstood genius
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Satire? Me? Shirley, you jest!
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Jest? Me?
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Shirley, you’re the greatest!
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am not sure anymore. either way he makes laugh
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He’s a genius if it is. I mean, you know what i’m writing, and every sentence is pure and utter bullshit, but nowhere do i admit it, and we’re going to promote it as “true” 🙂
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I will for the time being give him a benefit of doubt, pretend he is serious, have a good laugh and consider more of his works
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Speaking of genius, have you, Noel and Jeff seen this? This is the first time I’ve ever seen Slate publish an article of this nature, but it is brilliant.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2015/03/an_open_letter_to_47_republican_senators_from_iran_s_hard_liners_we_have.html
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Now THAT’S my kinda writing! Awesome!
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Knew you’d like it, Jeff. Slate is not known for satire which caused many of its readers to take a step back. Slate even got criticized in numbers for not warning them it was satire. lol 😀
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It’s Orson Wells and War of the Worlds all over again. Some people are SO dumb!
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Yep — and those in power know it, which is why they are in power in the first place. Idiocracy.
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Awesome! I like that 201%
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I saw that earlier. Brilliant, huh? Mockery is the best and only true way to deal with stupid.
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I couldn’t agree more!
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What sort of idjit would do that? Give me a break, already! That is no way to go about living one’s life! Jeez! Come on!
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LOL
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He is/was a very funny guy. Glad you are giving us a bit of his flavor.
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I like funny people
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You only say that about me because I’ve two noses. Thanks for liking me though. 🙂
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Hahaha.
You, my friend, make me laugh days on end
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Cause of my second nose or my annoyingly irreverent wit? 😀
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Your annoying electricity bolt in your hand
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Oh, yeah, that. I suppose it’s cause of the radiation leaking from that that I’ve grown the second nose in the first place. Never play with gorilla glue and lightening bolts at the same time. Ugh!
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That explains.
I should start laughing at the second nose, but not just yet
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Thanks. It’s facing the other way on my head. Whenever I sneeze out of it, I get boogers in my eyes and hair. Life sucks, man!
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Sorry mate. Get someone to remove it.
Are you as short as your gravatar?
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I’m only a foot and half feet tall. I’m continually bumping into people’s knees with my bolt. Believe me, brother, when I tell you, that has caused some heated arguments. 🙂
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Hahahaha! I can’t stop laughing at the thought of that. Hilarious
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I’d be laughing too, if all I’ve told you weren’t so painfully true. 🙂
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Hahahah! That makes it funnier still
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😀
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I plead the fifth for fear of incriminating myself. 🙂
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Silence is always a safe bet.
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I think reality is a little bit more complicated, but … 🙂
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Hey nannus.
I get you
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LOL! I need to stop and rethink my current relationship status! 🙂
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Definitely and you should consult the pope on this
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LOL! Appointment, please, O Sanctified One!
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