Mencken and Nietzsche

Those who have done me the honor of reading this blog will know that I hold in high regard the Sage of Baltimore, the great journalist H.L. Mencken, and that I deplore the fact we have not seen his like since he departed this life.  Now we have pundits aplenty, but none with his wit and learning, certainly none with his gift for words.  The late Christopher Hitchens was a worthy successor, but not a newspaperman, really, in the sense Mencken was; but then there may be no such thing as a newspaperman now.

But for all the admiration I have for him, I have trouble understanding his admiration for Nietzsche.  How could Mencken, so accomplished at deflating the egos of the pompous, so sardonic, so disdainful of boosterism in all its forms, admire a man who, I think, is likely to have used more exclamation points in his work than any person in history?  And of course question marks, or perhaps more properly rhetorical questions, and italics.  One imagines Nietzsche breaking pen after pen in his efforts to declaim, frustrated that writing his thoughts (feelings may be more appropriate) was so little like shouting them which it seemed he longed to do--and perhaps did; I don't know.

Of course, Mencken was in his twenties when he wrote his book on Nietzsche's philosophy, and it was apparently the first book about that philosophy published in English.  Mencken, though, read him in the original German.  I've often wondered if translators are at fault for making Nietzsche (and others as well) appear so frenzied, but they seem to do so consistently.  It may be that exclamation points, endless rhetorical questions, and trumpeting italic emphasis were typically used by Europeans in the 19th century, but I doubt it.  Perhaps Mencken thought that as he was in a way introducing Nietzsche to the English speaking/reading world, it made sense to emphasize aspects of his works which he felt were new and interesting.

But since Mencken was relatively young, and Nietzsche's thought new to the English or American-English world, it's possible that Mencken found himself overwhelmed by a kind of Dionysian madness of the type Nietzsche seemed to extol.   He can be an intoxicating read for a young person.  I admit he was for me, in any case.  I read Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Birth of Tragedy, in my teens, and was most impressed.  I may have read more of his work.  I'm not sure, though; they seem to run together in my mind as a kind of torrent, full of the kind of bold and dramatic assertions so pleasing to read at that age.

As I'm confessing, I may also just as well note I read Ayn Rand in those heady years, and was also impressed by her works.  I'm sure I'll insult someone by noting this, but I think there are similarities between the two, at least as to style--declamatory, condemning, absolute, intolerant, angry.

I like to think an older, wiser, or at least more jaded Mencken would have had second thoughts about Nietzsche.  But unfortunately even an admirer of Mencken must acknowledge that he was something of an elitist (also something of a racist, unfortunately) and did not think fondly of most of his fellow humans.  He was certainly not a fan of American democracy or American politicians, for the most part.  It may be he shared with Nietzsche a certain contempt for the common herd, and what Nietzsche thought was the herd mentality.  This may have lead him to believe that we had no choice but to be mere members of the herd or a superman of sorts.  This can be a dangerously suggestive belief.

And there can be no doubt that Mencken shared with Nietzsche a distaste for Christianity.  Mencken was, I believe, far wittier than Nietzsche in his treatment of it, though, as he was in his treatment of all things.  What I have read of Mencken indicates he felt Christianity was to be criticized because of its status in his mind as a superstition, and its disregard of what reason and science tells us.  Nietzsche may have felt this way about Christianity also, but it seems he was primarily repulsed by it because it renders us meek in a way he found objectionable.

I think wit makes us tolerant, or at least serves to make us less inclined to think highly not only of others but ourselves.  Nietzsche I would not consider a witty man; he took everything far too seriously, including I would say himself.  His little essays about why he was more clever, etc., than everyone else may have been intended as wit, though.  It seems to me that if that was his intent in writing them, his good intentions soon gave way to his tendency to pontificate. 

They say opposites attract, however, and it may be that Mencken in reading Nietzsche recognized in him a disparate soul, with a kind of enthusiasm and feeling Mencken lacked, being an analytic mind and not an intuitive one like the philosopher.  Like that philosopher, I should say, who may more properly considered a poet, or at least a frustrated one. 

The Existence Blues

I've written a song, called "The Existence Blues."  It's rather short, but will, I'm sure, be a hit.  The lyrics are:  "Well I woke up this morning."

Longer ago than I care to say, I saw Muddy Waters perform.  I saw him at some hall or other venue at Georgetown University.  As might be expected at that place, his audience was made up largely of white college students.  I was, and still am, white, but was not a college student at that time as I was attending law school (though not at Georgetown).  I was alone and in a mood for blues, having managed to alienate a woman I'd been seeing for about 5 years.  I wonder why I didn't write "The Existence Blues" then; but I've managed to exist for some time since, and so think I knew I had only myself to blame, not the world or life in general.

I thought of calling it "The Antinatalist Blues" but hesitated to do so.  Antinatalism, to the extent that it urges that we limit our reproduction, perhaps even drastically limit it, may be reasonable given our circumstances.  Although its adherents seem to delight in numbing references to life's miseries, and cloak their arguments in rhetoric which is so full of moral disapproval of the world as to rival the worst of the Puritans, there would seem to be little doubt that resources are dwindling, as are other creatures, due to our extravagance and selfishness and that something should be done about that. 

Unfortunately, the population of those countries where reproduction is, as it were, rampant, will likely not heed to the Antinatalist screed (yes, I'm a poet).  It's doubtful they spend their time reading the works of the Antinatalists, who it occurs to me might more accurately be referred to as "anti-life" than opponents of abortion are referred to as "pro-life."  Then, of course, there is the baffling teaching of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the question of reproduction, which Monty Python skewered (again as it were) so well with the song "Every Sperm is Sacred."

The Church of my joy and, more certainly, my youth may yet meet its match in this matter in such organizations at the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEM to its OHCAC, I suppose) which I was delighted to run across while browsing the Internet.  I was delighted by its name, if not by its creed (which rhymes with heed and screed, please note).  I suppose we must be thankful there is no Involuntary Human Extinction Movement.  We've seen someting like such a movement in the past, though, even if their ambitions were limited to the extinction of a mere portion of the human race.

But the manner in which Aninatalists condemn human life, or perhaps more accurately condemn new human life or addtional human lives, troubles me.  It smacks of a kind of Puritanism as I noted, but may be even more absolute and universal in its condemnation, in that for the Antinatalists our lives and our world are not bad, even evil, merely because they are displeasing to God.  Instead, our lives are bad for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with God (unless of course we blame God for our lives).  There's not enough pleasure to match the pain.  To the Antinatalist, too much pain in life means there should be no gain in life.  And while the Puritans as far as I am aware did not condemn new life, being content to condemn lives being led, the Antinatalists are eager to condemn the life we the living lead as well as the creation of new life. 

Complaining that life is not as nice as we want it to be is hardly uncommon.  Maintaining that no human should ever be born because life is not as nice as we want it to be seems, I'm inclined to say, arrogant.  We never tire of telling others what they should do, what is good, what is right, what is true.  We're all natural schoolmasters or schoolmarms,  it would seem. 

It's true, of course, that we're not involved in our own procreation.  We don't (as many like to say, needlessly) choose to be born.  Our birth, however, is clearly one of the things we can't control.  So complaining that we were born seems particularly futile.  Complaining that other people were born, or are born, or will be born, seems particularly presumptuous and even vile.  It's characteristic of an attitude towards others which seems similar to the attitude some have, that the disabled and old should be done away with, not just for the greater good but their own good--life will be so horrible for them anyway.

Nota bene I say "similar."  As far as I know, Antinatalists have not (yet?) urged that certain of us be killed.  But they are urging that nobody should be allowed to live; nobody should even have the opportunity to decide whether or not they will continue living.  And it seems they make this claim as to all human life, regardless of the circumstances.  Human life is, quite simply, primarily bad, always.

This makes me wonder why it is that Antinatalists don't make use of the option available to them which they don't want to see made available to others yet to be born--suicide.  It seems life, though not good, is good enough for them to continue to expound on how bad life is and proclaim that others should not live.  If life is so bad nobody else should live, why aren't we all committing suicide?  Some of us do, of course, but most of us don't.  Are the majority of us simply not sensitive and thoughtful enough to understand we should die as soon as possible?

Antinatalists and suicide advocates seem to me to succumb to the all too human tendency to take the concrete and render it abstract (ever try to find the antonym for "reify"?).  Instead of considering the circumstances in making a decision or formulating a theory, we seek to categorize, to codify; indeed, to relieve ourselves of the burden of thought.  Absolutists have no need to think.  All life is bad; we have the right to commit suicide in all cases.

The ancients were more sensible than we are in considering how to live and whether to live.  They saw suicide was an option, but not one to be chosen lightly or unthinkingly, which was to choose, according to Marcus Aurelius, through mere pig-headedness or self-righteousness, "like a Christian" seeking martyrdom. 

Our standard of living in the West, or in the developed world, is probably better than anytime in the past, yet we complain of life probably more than ever.  Too much time to think of things like whether anybody (else!) should ever be born?  It's interesting what the implications of this are for leisure.  Perhaps Plato and others who dreamt of well-regulated Utopias should have given more thought to the dangers of mere mentation, and given the elite caretakers of the populace something to do which would make them less inclined to despise the lives others live.

Haacking Away at Vacuity

I always enjoy reading Susan Haack.  She is so eminently sensible, she gives me hope for pragmatism and philosophy of the kind I feel when reading the classical pragmatists and relieves the despair I feel when reading those who are called neo-pragmatists.  The former were sensible as well, while the latter are it seems to me purveyors of piffle, fomenting the futile, facilitating that fallacious fellowship of arcane academicians who revel in relativism.  Nattering nabobs of negativism, I would say, if someone less than admirable had not already said it.  Good stuff if not from a good person.

"Sensible" is good word, and to be called sensible is a compliment, even in the case of a philosopher.  It means reasonable, rational, practical, sagacious, sound, shrewd.  Alan Sokal is not alone, it seems, in castigating those who evidently lurk Snape-like in the halls of Academia, whispering that there is no such thing as truth, that science is just a kind of social negotiation or narrative no more worthy of respect than a chant, that we're all mere puppets of our culture, class, upbringing, whatever (though its doubtful any of them can achieve the sublime bitchiness Alan Rickman can so effortlessly deploy). 

That there is no such thing as "Truth" (with a capital "T") has been fairly well established, I believe, if by that we mean some kind of Absolute Truth residing somewhere outside our far less than perfect world.  But there are those who have led themselves to believe that there is no way to establish even little "t" truth, perhaps because they are as much victims of the quest for certainty as those who laved in the font of the big "T." 

The tendency to lash out at science is to a certain extent understandable, especially in those poor teachers of the humanities who have been compelled to hear the hard sciences lauded while their forays into literary criticism, history, philosophy have been denigrated.  And to a certain extent science has been given too much praise, even far too much for its own good.  And doubtless we're all influenced by power, and society, and elites, and culture and religion, and class.  That is to say, it is doubtless that we're all human.

But as Haack points out this fact, of such significance to those who seem to doubt there are matters of fact, doesn't mean that we're incapable of making good judgments, conclusions and inferences, well founded and sound--sensible, in fact--in science and in other matters.  It isn't an easy thing to do, and we must struggle not to be unduly influenced by those factors which can impair our judgment, but we can do it and have done it.  Protesting that we can't and haven't simply cuts the legs out of any inquiry, including those involved in making the protests.

I wonder if the difficulty involved in thinking along with the futility of seeking absolute certainty have resulted in the wave of the vacuous which overwhelms us these days.  It's certainly much easier not to think, and in that case comforting to maintain that there is no need to think, really, in any case.  But perhaps there is a kind of romantic despair involved in such attitudes as well, similar to the despair indulged in by many, especially artists and intellectuals, when doubt in the existence of God became serious in the 19th century.  "If there is no God, everything is permitted!" they would cry, some of them while crying, literally.  Thence to kill themselves like a character from a Dostoevsky novel as nothing mattered anymore.

"If there is no Truth, everything is permitted!" would seem to be a pronouncement worthy of those Haack refers to as propounding the "New Cynicism" or perhaps it's more accurate to say they are worth of the pronouncement.  I don't particularly like the name "New Cynicism" as I think Cynicism for all its extremes was a respectable ancient and venerable school of philosophy in its time.  A cynic may feel about it what a pragmatist may feel about "neo-pragmatism."

Regardless, it's a saying which seems to fit.  Where there is no Truth, then all theories, conclusions, judgments, claims are of equal worth, which is to say of no worth at all.  All are permitted as there is no way to distinguish them, no basis on which to judge them as good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable.  Vacuitas, vacuitatis, et omnia vacuitas.

Regarding St. Augustine

The Bishop of Hippo was not, I think, a very likable fellow.  He is certainly one of those whose stature in Western history is such that we are told we must read his various works, or at least one of them, most likely his City of God, in order to consider ourselves properly educated.  His influence in Western Christianity is profound; he is, I suppose, its Plato, just as St. Thomas Aquinas may be considered its Aristotle.  And Western Christianity has, for good or ill, profoundly influenced Western history, so I suppose he's entitled to his august status (tee-hee).  But he has much to answer for as well.

He was evidently one of those loathsome men who, like Rousseau, reveled in what they thought to be their unworthiness, so much so that he felt compelled to relate it to us in detail.  In his Confessions he flaunts his misdeeds, especially his sexual activities, which seem to have fascinated him after his conversion as much if not more than they did when he was a wretched pagan neo-platonist or Manichean.  I don't think this can be said to be simply the style of the time, but in his defense it may be possible to claim that zealous converts and sinners who have lost their way and been, most ostentatiously, found, have always been inclined to air their sins in public with a kind of masochistic delight.

Of more significance than his flamboyance in this respect, however, is his relentless propagation of the view that humanity, and indeed this world in general, is wicked, contemptible, lost, consigned to the flames of hell but for God's saving grace, which the Divinity dispenses with a miserliness which is appalling but is thus especially gratifying to those chosen as recipients, and of course but for the salvation that was the consequence of Jesus' sacrifice (this grace and this apparently incomplete salvation exist somewhat uncomfortably side-by-side in Augustine's theology).  Our evil and that of the world, and the glorification of the Civitas Dei as compared with the Civitas Terrena, are his primary "contributions" to our history and our culture in my not very humble opinion.

Just how miserable these contributions and their effect are and have been is, of course, the subject of some debate.  It would seem to me unsurprising that such views may encourage the development of a priestly elite, a fixation on achieving a state of grace through various rituals, and the denigration of the world and all its pleasures to the point where providing for the worldly comforts of people is a secondary concern at best.  All eyes must be on the heavenly prize which may await us, not on what is here.  And that was the way of it for many centuries, and still is now in many cases.

It's a sad legacy for any man.  It's possible Augustine didn't foresee that such thoughts would lead to the institutional Christianity which came to be.  Like other Christian apologists, he would claim that Christian doctrine had nothing to do with the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire.  He was busily writing away even as the Vandals were hammering at the walls of Hippo.  They were good enough to leave Augustine's cathedral standing, though, and this no doubt was considered a sign of something good for Augustine and the Church. 

We have in a sense been cursed with great men, or cursed by them.  Too many of the great have been convinced that they know what is good and true, and have been inclined to seek the imposition of their beliefs on others.  The great are absolutists, and see things as black and white, good and evil.  They invariably believe themselves to be good, though, and those who oppose them to be evil.  Thus Augustine waged his wars against the Donatists and the Pelagians.  It's likely he more than Nero fiddled while Rome burned; what matter the Civitas Terrena?

But truly, Rome's demise in the West was well along by that time and probably could not have been prevented by even the most patriotic of pagans.  Augustine's importance was not in the destruction of Rome, but in the creation of a new Rome, one whose ambitions were just as imperial but directed towards a universal dominion of another kind.  That new Rome proved more lasting than the old, though there is no Civitas Dei.