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On the contrary, if you're going to hold someone up as a sage of the time, compare them to other sages. And you can take someone like John Dewey, who was very
by dtornabene 9y ago
On the contrary, if you're going to hold someone up as a sage of the time, compare them to other sages. And you can take someone like John Dewey, who was very well known in the early 20th century, or Randolph Borne as examples of people who were quite perceptive, as sages, and point that they were in fact openly explicitly anti racist. Quite a few of the socialist, social democratic and communist writers of the period had a public record of deep thorough social and political criticism that rivaled menckens sans racism. The "judge them by the standards of their time" can only work so close to our own time, or if you exclude those voices that counter your narrative.
Edited: Its also I think worth pointing out when someone who is held up a paragon of democracy, like Washington is, held views that were quite anti-democratic. If this persons vision of democracy was limited, should we not note this? Regardless (within reason) of the time? There were people publicly writing at the time of the American revolution that believed in an end to slavery, the right of woman and non-property holders to vote, etc. There was a reason that The Federalist Papers were written, it was assumed that the arguments for the adoption of the constitution and the government it would create were liable to lose out for a variety of reasons. We tend to collapse the range of debate that was happening at that time.
- coldtea 9y ago>On the contrary, if you're going to hold someone up as a sage of the time, compare them to other sages. Well, pointing the fact they followed the general racist etc feeling might be informational, but the sage part refers to the many issues he wrote about where he was indeed very prescient and competent -- not some total omniscient figure that couldn't go wrong. >Quite a few of the socialist, social democratic and communist writers of the period had a public record of deep thorough social and political criticism that rivaled menckens sans racism. Yes, but few were as popular and influential while doing so. This was a major newsperson, most of the others were fringe voices. Plus their anti-racism went hand in hand with the political ideology that they had adopted -- whereas for Mencken it was not so.
- dtornabene 9y agoAppeal To Reason was a socialist publication that reached half a million house holds in 1910. Not exactly "fringe". Neither was the New Republic, which published both Dewey and Bourne. Dewey was fairly widely published in other publications as well, he influenced many at the same time that Mencken did. I'm not sure but I'd imagine that Menckens racism very much did go hand in hand with his ideology, perhaps not in a causal way but complementary. As another commenter noted he was very much a misanthrope
- stickfigure 9y agoWho is holding Mencken up as a paragon of virtue? He's famous as an erudite misanthrope and curmudgeon. I expect he hated practically everything and everyone. Perhaps that is why he's fun to read?