Minority Report

by H.L. Mencken

"The most expensive thing on this earth is to believe in something that is palpably not true." "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." "Metaphysics is a refuge for men who have a strong desire to appear learned and profound but have nothing worth hearing to say." "Out of the past it comes, and as vibrant, penetrating, and provocative as I have ever heard it―the voice of H. L. Mencken, proclaiming his shrewd truths and magnificent prejudices with a pungent clarity possessed by no other critic of our times."―Edward Weeks, Atlantic "This is Mencken, all right, authentic and inimitable. Some of it is Vintage Mencken, with the bouquet and body that delighted connoisseurs for thirty years; some of it is Outrageous Mencken, dispensing soda-pop and, tongue in cheek, gravely assuring the brainless that it is the true, the blushing Hippocrene; but all of it is the One and Only Mencken, flashing, sparkling and as stimulating to swift endeavor as the sting of a wasp."― New York Herald Tribune In 1956 Mencken could look back on a long and distinguished career that included years at the top of his profession, the publication of three volumes of memoirs, and a steady stream of journalism that made him loved and hated, sometimes by the same person. For Minority Report , he read through his notebooks, extracting those pieces he thought most true, most pertinent, most precise, or most likely to blow the dust out of a reader's brain. "He is a delight to read―a little at a time, which one must do in order to fully enjoy the old master's sledgehammer effect."― San Francisco Chronicle

Genres: Politics, Essays, Philosophy, Journalism

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken became one of the most influential and prolific journalists in America in the 1920s and '30s, writing about all the shams and con artists in the world. He attacked chiropractors and the Ku Klux Klan, politicians and other journalists. Most of all, he attacked Puritan morality. He called Puritanism, "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

At the height of his career, he edited and wrote for The American Mercury magazine and the Baltimore Sun newspaper, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune, and published two or three books every year. His masterpiece was one of the few books he wrote about something he loved, a book called The American Language (1919), a history and collection of American vernacular speech. It included a translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English that began, "When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."

When asked what he would like for an epitaph, Mencken wrote, "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

(from American Public Media)

Reviews

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really pretty good.

[J.R. Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

One iconoclastic romp after another. Even when you don't agree with Mister Mencken you can't stop reading his excellent prose. His is a view from another era that sometimes still holds sway today...sometimes not, but then, it gives us a literary picture of life, opinion and events of another day.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is frightening how many things Menken says I agree with completely, only because I disagree utterly with about a quarter of what he says. A challenging book.

[Roger Rosenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarcastic, sometimes cynical, and painfully hard on many professions, including mine. Many of his biting comments, however, are deserved.