Just back from a weekend down in Baltimore, where I gave a talk to the H.L. Mencken Club.\u00a0 Nice people; well-organized event; good reception for talk.\u00a0 However, I can’t forbear noting some dissonances pertinent to the theme of this blog.<\/p>\n
Among the things H.L. Mencken<\/a> is best remembered for is his coverage of the 1925 Scopes trial<\/a> in Tennessee, in which he dealt quite mercilessly<\/a> with the creationists and their champion, William Jennings Bryan.\u00a0 Mencken was an atheist, though not an angry or obsessive one, except when confronted with extreme fundamentalism.\u00a0\u00a0 Try his essay titled “Sabbath Meditation” (though note that the one in the original American Mercury<\/a> is significantly different from the version printed up later\u00a0in the Chrestomathy<\/a>).<\/p>\n Well, so there I\u00a0was sitting down to dinner on the first evening of this Menckenfest.\u00a0 Seeing a plate of salad in front of me, I applied some condiments and started eating.\u00a0 In between the second and third mouthfuls I heard an amplified voice coming from the speakers’ tables: “All right, everybody, we shall now say Grace.\u00a0 Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts\u00a0\u2026”\u00a0 I felt as if I’d been caught picking my nose on live TV.<\/p>\n Somewhat later I got into conversation with the lady who had given out the Grace.\u00a0 She was very charming and friendly, and had been instrumental in getting the conference organized, so is obviously very capable.\u00a0 It emerged, however, in the course of our conversation, that she is a Young Earth Creationist!<\/p>\n What Mencken would have made of this, I don’t know.\u00a0 What I make of it is, that the prospects for a godless American conservatism are not very bright.\u00a0 Still, at least we have a blog up and running.<\/p>\n And in fairness, I should say that a full range of religiosity was present at the conference, from God-is-dead-get-over-it Nietzscheans to Blue Scapular<\/a> RCs.\u00a0 We actually had two fine presentations on the mustachioed metaphysician<\/a> (the excuse being that Mencken was an early admirer and translator of Nietzsche).<\/p>\n In some of the other addresses and commentary I\u00a0am pretty sure I detected efforts by RC ideologues to “recruit” Mencken.\u00a0 They have gotten awfully good at\u00a0“recruiting” historical persons and movements, like Latter-Day Saints baptizing their ancestors.\u00a0 Did you know that the scientific revolution was inspired by Catholic teaching?\u00a0 That the American Founders were crypto-Catholics?\u00a0 (Yes, even Jefferson\u00a0\u2014 see e.g. Damon Linker’s book<\/a>, p.71.) That Shakespeare was Catholic?\u00a0 Etc., etc.\u00a0 Whether the RC ideologues\u00a0have yet managed to recruit Nietzsche, I couldn’t say, but I bet they have tried<\/em>.<\/p>\n All ideologues go in for this kind of thing.\u00a0 Homosexualists are perhaps the worst.\u00a0 From my review<\/a> of Louis Crompton’s Homosexuality and Civilization<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n Julius Caesar?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 Jesus of Nazareth?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 Leonardo?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 Frederick the Great?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 All of them\u00a0\u2014 gay, gay, gay!\u00a0 I do not recall having seen it argued that George Washington was gay, but I have not the slightest doubt that the argument has been made by somebody, somewhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Communists do it too. I used to teach English literature<\/a> in Maoist China\u00a0from locally-produced textbooks. All the “approved” writers turned out, in the accompanying notes, to have been socialists and revolutionaries, or at the very least “friends of the common people,” though of course their revolutionary sentiments were often suppressed and muddled, not having the pure light of Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tse-Tung-Thought as a guide.\u00a0 This was even the case\u00a0\u2014 I am pretty sure I remember this right\u00a0\u2014 with such specimens as Wilde and Galsworthy.\u00a0\u00a0To the\u00a0committed ideologue, it is unbearable to think that any worthy person or\u00a0project, from any time or place,\u00a0was not inspired in some way by the Cause.<\/p>\n Was Mencken, in between hooting at the backwoods glossolalists of Tennessee and telling us that “my true and natural allegiance [is] to the Devil’s party, and it has been my firm belief that … all persons who devote themselves to forcing virtue on their fellow men deserve nothing better than kicks in the pants”\u00a0\u2014 was he actually sneaking off to do his beads in some dark corner?\u00a0 I expect to see it confidently asserted, if it hasn’t already been.<\/p>\n A deathbed conversion, too.\u00a0 Godly ideologues are fond of conjuring those up.\u00a0 At least, I have seen deathbed conversions argued for David Hume and Charles Darwin.\u00a0 These stories have inspired Richard Dawkins to insist that his own death be recorded on film, to foil any attempts to recruit him into the company of those who see the Light just as the actual light is fading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just back from a weekend down in Baltimore, where I gave a talk to the H.L. Mencken Club.\u00a0 Nice people; well-organized event; good reception for talk.\u00a0 However, I can’t forbear noting some dissonances pertinent to the theme of this blog. … Continue reading
![the mustachioed metaphysician<\/a> (the excuse being that Mencken was an early admirer and translator of Nietzsche).<\/p>\nIn some of the other addresses and commentary I\u00a0am pretty sure I detected efforts by RC ideologues to “recruit” Mencken.\u00a0 They have gotten awfully good at\u00a0“recruiting” historical persons and movements, like Latter-Day Saints baptizing their ancestors.\u00a0 Did you know that the scientific revolution was inspired by Catholic teaching?\u00a0 That the American Founders were crypto-Catholics?\u00a0 (Yes, even Jefferson\u00a0\u2014 see e.g. Damon Linker’s book<\/a>, p.71.) That Shakespeare was Catholic?\u00a0 Etc., etc.\u00a0 Whether the RC ideologues\u00a0have yet managed to recruit Nietzsche, I couldn’t say, but I bet they have tried<\/em>.<\/p>\nAll ideologues go in for this kind of thing.\u00a0 Homosexualists are perhaps the worst.\u00a0 From my review<\/a> of Louis Crompton’s Homosexuality and Civilization<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\nJulius Caesar?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 Jesus of Nazareth?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 Leonardo?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 Frederick the Great?\u00a0 Gay!\u00a0 All of them\u00a0\u2014 gay, gay, gay!\u00a0 I do not recall having seen it argued that George Washington was gay, but I have not the slightest doubt that the argument has been made by somebody, somewhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nCommunists do it too. I used to teach English literature<\/a> in Maoist China\u00a0from locally-produced textbooks. All the “approved” writers turned out, in the accompanying notes, to have been socialists and revolutionaries, or at the very least “friends of the common people,” though of course their revolutionary sentiments were often suppressed and muddled, not having the pure light of Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Tse-Tung-Thought as a guide.\u00a0 This was even the case\u00a0\u2014 I am pretty sure I remember this right\u00a0\u2014 with such specimens as Wilde and Galsworthy.\u00a0\u00a0To the\u00a0committed ideologue, it is unbearable to think that any worthy person or\u00a0project, from any time or place,\u00a0was not inspired in some way by the Cause.<\/p>\nWas Mencken, in between hooting at the backwoods glossolalists of Tennessee and telling us that “my true and natural allegiance [is] to the Devil’s party, and it has been my firm belief that … all persons who devote themselves to forcing virtue on their fellow men deserve nothing better than kicks in the pants”\u00a0\u2014 was he actually sneaking off to do his beads in some dark corner?\u00a0 I expect to see it confidently asserted, if it hasn’t already been.<\/p>\nA deathbed conversion, too.\u00a0 Godly ideologues are fond of conjuring those up.\u00a0 At least, I have seen deathbed conversions argued for David Hume and Charles Darwin.\u00a0 These stories have inspired Richard Dawkins to insist that his own death be recorded on film, to foil any attempts to recruit him into the company of those who see the Light just as the actual light is fading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just back from a weekend down in Baltimore, where I gave a talk to the H.L. Mencken Club.\u00a0 Nice people; well-organized event; good reception for talk.\u00a0 However, I can’t forbear noting some dissonances pertinent to the theme of this blog. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[131,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:Nietzsche187a.jpg\"){kind=link}