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The American credo: A contribution toward the interpretation of the national mind
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- GenresEssaysPhilosophyHistory
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1921
17 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
H.L. Mencken
638 books739 followersHenry 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)
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)
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January 15, 2026A Book Owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald: https://static-prod.lib.princeton.edu...
October 3, 2018
Ridicules ideas of a national character. Dated but fun.
January 22, 2011
American Credo: A Contribution to the Interpretation of the National Mind is a clever, cynical assault published in 1920 by Mencken and his co-author, a drama critic named George Jean Nathan with whom he would co-found The American Mercury in 1924. It caustically summarizes the state of the union and how many Americans perceived themselves in this post-WW I period. The first 3/5 of the book is a preface which provides the opportunity to call out hypocrisies and demagogues, ridicule country bumpkins and ethnic immigrants, and have a particularly focused go at Woodrow Wilson and Presbyterians.
Mencken (it’s his voice I hear as I read) bluntly points out weaknesses in the American system where he sees them, and it is often a bit startling how easily many of his complaints from ninety years ago could be directly applied to our current government, media, religious institutions, and political process today. Be prepared for racism against American blacks and ethnic slurs against Jews and recent immigrants as part of the baggage that comes along in his cultural commentary from 1920. I certainly don’t condone such attitudes, but despite them, I still think many of his acerbic insights on how society operates are spot on. I take his bigotry and racism as reminders that even the clever can fall into such practices, and while reacting with dismay and sometimes disgust at his commentary on these occasions, I am also prompted to reflect on what sort of equivalent behaviors I might unknowingly be guilty of now, to be judged harshly by those who hold to what are perceived to be "liberal values" ninety years in the future. He is funny, a charmer, his vocabulary rollicking and keenly honed. It was, indeed, an excellent choice when Stanley Kramer cast Gene Kelly to play E.K. Hornbeck, the character based on Mencken in the 1960 film version of Inherit the Wind.
Once we get past the preface, the rest of the book consists of a list of 488 items which Mencken claims make up the American belief system. The list jumps around, providing continual surprises, and includes a wide range of assertions, all beginning with “That…” and summarized in no more than a few sentences. Some of them included old wives’ tales I had heard in my youth in the 1960s, so I guess they were folk traditions then, 40 years earlier. Others must have been folk traditions I had never heard of, and there were also racial or ethnic stereotypes, health cures, silly things one suspects many people did believe then, rumors, absurd claims, and also mixed in some things I do believe myself still today. Some made me laugh right out loud, and because the list is so eclectic, reading it all in a row, careening around with juxtapositions, adds to the overall sense of what a myriad mix “the American mind” truly is. The authors didn’t proofread the list very carefully before publication for I noticed item 306 and item 480 were exactly the same: “That if one doesn’t scratch a mosquito bite it will stop itching.” I’m willing to forgive Mencken and Nathan that error, given how much they must have irritated some of the stuffed shirts of their time, putting such a pricking pin into the twin balloons of pomposity and self-righteousness.
Mencken (it’s his voice I hear as I read) bluntly points out weaknesses in the American system where he sees them, and it is often a bit startling how easily many of his complaints from ninety years ago could be directly applied to our current government, media, religious institutions, and political process today. Be prepared for racism against American blacks and ethnic slurs against Jews and recent immigrants as part of the baggage that comes along in his cultural commentary from 1920. I certainly don’t condone such attitudes, but despite them, I still think many of his acerbic insights on how society operates are spot on. I take his bigotry and racism as reminders that even the clever can fall into such practices, and while reacting with dismay and sometimes disgust at his commentary on these occasions, I am also prompted to reflect on what sort of equivalent behaviors I might unknowingly be guilty of now, to be judged harshly by those who hold to what are perceived to be "liberal values" ninety years in the future. He is funny, a charmer, his vocabulary rollicking and keenly honed. It was, indeed, an excellent choice when Stanley Kramer cast Gene Kelly to play E.K. Hornbeck, the character based on Mencken in the 1960 film version of Inherit the Wind.
Once we get past the preface, the rest of the book consists of a list of 488 items which Mencken claims make up the American belief system. The list jumps around, providing continual surprises, and includes a wide range of assertions, all beginning with “That…” and summarized in no more than a few sentences. Some of them included old wives’ tales I had heard in my youth in the 1960s, so I guess they were folk traditions then, 40 years earlier. Others must have been folk traditions I had never heard of, and there were also racial or ethnic stereotypes, health cures, silly things one suspects many people did believe then, rumors, absurd claims, and also mixed in some things I do believe myself still today. Some made me laugh right out loud, and because the list is so eclectic, reading it all in a row, careening around with juxtapositions, adds to the overall sense of what a myriad mix “the American mind” truly is. The authors didn’t proofread the list very carefully before publication for I noticed item 306 and item 480 were exactly the same: “That if one doesn’t scratch a mosquito bite it will stop itching.” I’m willing to forgive Mencken and Nathan that error, given how much they must have irritated some of the stuffed shirts of their time, putting such a pricking pin into the twin balloons of pomposity and self-righteousness.
January 28, 2014
This examination of what Americans think starts out aiming for de Tocqueville but then ends as imitation Dave Barry. In their preface (more than half the book), Nathan and Mencken ask what is the idea that really animates the American. The American would say:
But that is just so much eyewash. If Americans were really interested in liberty, they would not have countenanced the Espionage Act that restricted the liberties of socialists, pacifists, and other such characters that opposed the Great War, to say nothing of Prohibition. What really animates the American is
This thread is then lost in considerations upon religious life in America, the perfidy of President Wilson, and (strangely) lynching as arising from the lack of anything better to do in the South.
When it comes to the American Credo itself, what Nathan and Mencken see as the substrate of American thought is a hodgepodge of cliches, folk sayings, and superstitions. So they do an American version of Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas.
These sayings are often amusing in their banality, but this is a huge step down from the American as one who has a "fear of falling" or from any broad consideration of American thought at all.
his hot and unquenchable rage for liberty. He regards himself, indeed, as the chief exponent of liberty in the whole world, and all its other advocates as no more than his followers, half timorous and half envious. To question his ardour is to insult him as grievously as if one questioned the honour of the republic or the chastity of his wife.
But that is just so much eyewash. If Americans were really interested in liberty, they would not have countenanced the Espionage Act that restricted the liberties of socialists, pacifists, and other such characters that opposed the Great War, to say nothing of Prohibition. What really animates the American is
a passion to lift himself by at least a step or two in the society that he is a part of—a passion to improve his position, to break down some shadowy barrier of caste, to achieve the countenance of what, for all his talk of equality, he recognizes and accepts as his betters. The American is a pusher. His eyes are ever fixed upon some round of the ladder that is just beyond his reach, and all his secret ambitions, all his extraordinary energies, group themselves about the yearning to grasp it. Here we have an explanation of the curious restlessness that educated foreigners, as opposed to mere immigrants, always make a note of in the country; it is half aspiration and half impatience, with overtones of dread and timorousness. The American is violently eager to get on, and thoroughly convinced that his merits entitle him to try and to succeed, but by the same token he is sickeningly fearful of slipping back, and out of the second fact, as we shall see, spring some of his most characteristic traits. He is a man vexed, at one and the same time, by delusions of grandeur and an inferiority complex; he is both egotistical and subservient, assertive and politic, blatant and shy.
This thread is then lost in considerations upon religious life in America, the perfidy of President Wilson, and (strangely) lynching as arising from the lack of anything better to do in the South.
When it comes to the American Credo itself, what Nathan and Mencken see as the substrate of American thought is a hodgepodge of cliches, folk sayings, and superstitions. So they do an American version of Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas.
21. That it is dangerous to drink out of a garden hose, since if one does one is likely to swallow a snake.
27. That all great men have illegible signatures.
80. That a policeman can eat gratis as much fruit and as many peanuts off the street-corner stands as he wants.
135. That blondes are flightier than brunettes.
180. That children were much better behaved twenty years ago than they are today.
These sayings are often amusing in their banality, but this is a huge step down from the American as one who has a "fear of falling" or from any broad consideration of American thought at all.
December 22, 2025
"The American Credo" by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan ‘is a profound exploration of the national mind of America. The authors dissect the social aspirations that drive American behavior, revealing a complex interplay of ambition and fear’ that is a quote, and I agree with it, this is why I have it here, albeit there are caveats, for I feel very strongly that America is not what Mencken knew, it has changed since my youth, never mind more than fifty years ago…now for my inefficient self-promotion: you have more than five thousand reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites, plus about as many notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... maybe you wish to subscribe…
H.L. Mencken is one of my favorite luminaries, his quotes on democracy- ‘Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard" – wealth, which ‘is any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband’ , historians or politicians – ‘The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth’ are accurate and amusing!
H.L. Mencken was prescient, think of the last quote and the psychopath who is demolishing the White House, while at the same time making it look like the palace of a monarch, what with all that tacky gold, the signs he has put up, inserting himself under the portraits of former presidents, insulting some of them…
https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... these people ‘did get it good and hard’ after the last elections, albeit the MAGA crowd does not seem to get it, indeed, this horrible creature still has about 42% approval rating, lowest in history, but still, unimaginable for such a monster
spoiler alert – I don’t know if I return to American Credo – what is left of that anyway? For the 42%, maybe a majority will vote for Vance in 2028, a gruesome zombi in my view, so again: there is no god damn credo left for those creeps – so I am going to rant here, and you are better off leaving this space, which most likely nobody visited anyway, and if they did look at the first couple of lines, then they are gone now
I was having this ‘conversation’ with a fella (he acts like a made guy from Goodfellas https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... in some ways) at the club downtown, about the Orange Demon and the infamous Zelensky disaster, which took place back in spring
We call him Ammoniac – from ammonia – at least that is between me and the Governor, a couple of other mates at the club, I have found an ad for ‘massage services’, where this woman advertised her special squirting abilities, and I was thrilled, but then soured, as this guy insisted it is just ammonia she will release, so the fun is killed near the man
So, anyway, a few hours back he talked about this video on YouTube, which apparently exposes Zelensky, at least for that MAGA crowd and conspiracy theorists, one of the points being that the Ukrainian hero (as I see him) was rude to his hosts, and I tried to emphasize that whatever this damn video ‘demonstrates’, he was not harsh enough, Zelensky could have said: ‘you are a fucking moron, demented, and more in this vein’ and he would not have been sincere enough for my taste, ditto for heinous Vance
The thing with Ammoniac is that he is so pretentious, pompous, he was going on on how they had all these people for Zelensky and he had ‘more than anybody else in diplomatic terms’, to which I said ‘are you fucking kidding me’, if not in those words, but look at the fighter jets flying for the despots from Russia and Saudi Arabia, they have had not only much more in decorum, attitude, good will, but the whole disgusting parade of admiration for such rich, cruel devils was on display for all to see, except these MAGA fools
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
H.L. Mencken is one of my favorite luminaries, his quotes on democracy- ‘Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard" – wealth, which ‘is any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband’ , historians or politicians – ‘The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth’ are accurate and amusing!
H.L. Mencken was prescient, think of the last quote and the psychopath who is demolishing the White House, while at the same time making it look like the palace of a monarch, what with all that tacky gold, the signs he has put up, inserting himself under the portraits of former presidents, insulting some of them…
https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... these people ‘did get it good and hard’ after the last elections, albeit the MAGA crowd does not seem to get it, indeed, this horrible creature still has about 42% approval rating, lowest in history, but still, unimaginable for such a monster
spoiler alert – I don’t know if I return to American Credo – what is left of that anyway? For the 42%, maybe a majority will vote for Vance in 2028, a gruesome zombi in my view, so again: there is no god damn credo left for those creeps – so I am going to rant here, and you are better off leaving this space, which most likely nobody visited anyway, and if they did look at the first couple of lines, then they are gone now
I was having this ‘conversation’ with a fella (he acts like a made guy from Goodfellas https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... in some ways) at the club downtown, about the Orange Demon and the infamous Zelensky disaster, which took place back in spring
We call him Ammoniac – from ammonia – at least that is between me and the Governor, a couple of other mates at the club, I have found an ad for ‘massage services’, where this woman advertised her special squirting abilities, and I was thrilled, but then soured, as this guy insisted it is just ammonia she will release, so the fun is killed near the man
So, anyway, a few hours back he talked about this video on YouTube, which apparently exposes Zelensky, at least for that MAGA crowd and conspiracy theorists, one of the points being that the Ukrainian hero (as I see him) was rude to his hosts, and I tried to emphasize that whatever this damn video ‘demonstrates’, he was not harsh enough, Zelensky could have said: ‘you are a fucking moron, demented, and more in this vein’ and he would not have been sincere enough for my taste, ditto for heinous Vance
The thing with Ammoniac is that he is so pretentious, pompous, he was going on on how they had all these people for Zelensky and he had ‘more than anybody else in diplomatic terms’, to which I said ‘are you fucking kidding me’, if not in those words, but look at the fighter jets flying for the despots from Russia and Saudi Arabia, they have had not only much more in decorum, attitude, good will, but the whole disgusting parade of admiration for such rich, cruel devils was on display for all to see, except these MAGA fools
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence
Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
August 30, 2020
This man is a genius this should be required reading for all Americans .
He wrote this 100 years ago and gets Americans down pat but the hilarious thing is nothing has changed.
At the time of writing it was the Presbyterians,Methodists,absolutists and Republicans who controlled the Catholics ,Jews , Socialists and free thinkers through ownership of the media and legal system and today the positions are reversed but the methods are the same.
An honest newspaper would fail so all media must have an agenda to survive and feed it's target market.
Here we are today with Covid19 in a time of human segregation, where freedoms are vanishing.
Mencken would be smiling at how the more things change the more they stay the same.
He wrote this 100 years ago and gets Americans down pat but the hilarious thing is nothing has changed.
At the time of writing it was the Presbyterians,Methodists,absolutists and Republicans who controlled the Catholics ,Jews , Socialists and free thinkers through ownership of the media and legal system and today the positions are reversed but the methods are the same.
An honest newspaper would fail so all media must have an agenda to survive and feed it's target market.
Here we are today with Covid19 in a time of human segregation, where freedoms are vanishing.
Mencken would be smiling at how the more things change the more they stay the same.
May 14, 2022
Meh
The lengthy introduction o this very short "book" has a few interesting things but once it gets into the book proper it meanders along with lots of references to people and events that may be foreign to a modern reader, and thus lose some of the satirical sting it might have had in another generation. At 75 pages it is a very quick read. I imagine that some wax intended to be humorous but I have no greater frame of reference to truly understand many of these brief passages, some no longer than a sentence in length.
The lengthy introduction o this very short "book" has a few interesting things but once it gets into the book proper it meanders along with lots of references to people and events that may be foreign to a modern reader, and thus lose some of the satirical sting it might have had in another generation. At 75 pages it is a very quick read. I imagine that some wax intended to be humorous but I have no greater frame of reference to truly understand many of these brief passages, some no longer than a sentence in length.
November 25, 2012
The first half is very (all?) Mencken: a cringe-inducing look at the center of gravity of the American democratically-induced consensus reality circa the Woodrow Wilson administration.
The second half of the book is peculiar — four hundred and some odd brief assertions (e.g. “That if one eats an apple every night before retiring, one will never be ill.”) that reputedly add up to the American credo: a sort of background folklore that colors our beliefs. These are a mixture of urban legends, frank superstitions, suspicions that the universe has a bias for irony (e.g., it never rains when you remember to bring your umbrella), cynicism and distrust about anonymous market transactions, ethnic and national stereotypes, folk remedies, and things you need to learn to be able to understand common dramatic and comic tropes (e.g., men never get along well with their mothers-in-law). Interesting, but kind of in a specialized way.
Ask the average American what is the salient passion in his emotional armamentarium — what is the idea that lies at the bottom of all his other ideas — and it is very probable that, nine times out of ten, he will nominate his hot and unquenchable rage for liberty. He regards himself, indeed, as the chief exponent of liberty in the whole world, and all its other advocates as no more than his followers, half timorous and half envious. To question his ardour is to insult him as grievously as if one questioned the honour of the republic or the chastity of his wife. And yet it must be plain to any dispassionate observer that this ardour, in the course of a century and a half, has lost a large part of its old burning reality and descended to the estate of a mere phosphorescent superstition.
He is forever talking of his rights as if he stood ready to defend them with his last drop of blood, and forever yielding them up at the first demand.There is much witty stuff of this sort, sticking barbs into middle-class liberal and puritan commonplaces. There is also an interesting discussion of the difference between the moralist and honorable perspectives that I think deserves a place in the canon of ethical philosophy.
The second half of the book is peculiar — four hundred and some odd brief assertions (e.g. “That if one eats an apple every night before retiring, one will never be ill.”) that reputedly add up to the American credo: a sort of background folklore that colors our beliefs. These are a mixture of urban legends, frank superstitions, suspicions that the universe has a bias for irony (e.g., it never rains when you remember to bring your umbrella), cynicism and distrust about anonymous market transactions, ethnic and national stereotypes, folk remedies, and things you need to learn to be able to understand common dramatic and comic tropes (e.g., men never get along well with their mothers-in-law). Interesting, but kind of in a specialized way.
April 30, 2013
I admire this book for its method more than anything else. Mencken and co-author George W. Nathan see their work as an experiment in "descriptive sociological psychology." The method is to catalog beliefs of all kinds in short, simple sentences with the purpose of understanding the fundamental assumptions of the American mind.
The preface is at least as important as the text itself in pursuing this purpose. The authors differentiate the moral mindset from the honor mindset, arguing for the predominance in American history of the former: Moral minds pursue high-minded goals without concern for whether they are sacrificing principles for expediency. Woodrow Wilson, in their illustration, violated agreements and promises repeatedly, to be sure; but in terms of morals, rather than honor, he singlemindedly pursued his political vision.
Censorship and lynchings are two phenomena that arise in American history that the authors focus on in the preface. The moral mind represses dissent to prevent the public from uprising as a mob against the forbidden speech. And lynching, though it was a Southern and not simply an American phenomenon, arose as a response to the religionists' moral crusades against all avenues of enjoyment and self-expression.
Call the idea of the moral mind the authors' thesis, to which they bring evidence in the form of particular beliefs that they observe in the American people: 869 of them.
I'll present a couple beliefs and be done with this review:
The preface is at least as important as the text itself in pursuing this purpose. The authors differentiate the moral mindset from the honor mindset, arguing for the predominance in American history of the former: Moral minds pursue high-minded goals without concern for whether they are sacrificing principles for expediency. Woodrow Wilson, in their illustration, violated agreements and promises repeatedly, to be sure; but in terms of morals, rather than honor, he singlemindedly pursued his political vision.
Censorship and lynchings are two phenomena that arise in American history that the authors focus on in the preface. The moral mind represses dissent to prevent the public from uprising as a mob against the forbidden speech. And lynching, though it was a Southern and not simply an American phenomenon, arose as a response to the religionists' moral crusades against all avenues of enjoyment and self-expression.
Call the idea of the moral mind the authors' thesis, to which they bring evidence in the form of particular beliefs that they observe in the American people: 869 of them.
I'll present a couple beliefs and be done with this review:
That the music of Richard Wagner is all played fortissimo, and by cornets
That Henry James never wrote a short sentence
That the accumulation of great wealth always brings with it great unhappiness
That when cousins marry, their children are born blind, deformed, or imbecile
December 16, 2012
The book is divided into two parts.
The first part is a preface which is smart, irreverant, iconoclastic, insightful, erudite, and stupid. It is very amusing and a wonderful read.
The second part is a series of aphorisms, presumably meant, tongue-in-cheek, to represent Americans' beliefs, spoken and unspoken. It is too topical to hold up 92 years later. About half the references are nearly unintelligible to modern audiences. A large number of the intelligible references contradict the beliefs of modern Americans. All in all, reading the second part is like trying to read and eat 488 92-year-old, smart ass fortune cookies.
The first part is a preface which is smart, irreverant, iconoclastic, insightful, erudite, and stupid. It is very amusing and a wonderful read.
The second part is a series of aphorisms, presumably meant, tongue-in-cheek, to represent Americans' beliefs, spoken and unspoken. It is too topical to hold up 92 years later. About half the references are nearly unintelligible to modern audiences. A large number of the intelligible references contradict the beliefs of modern Americans. All in all, reading the second part is like trying to read and eat 488 92-year-old, smart ass fortune cookies.
March 11, 2016
The American is a pusher. His eyes are ever fixed upon some round of the ladder that is just beyond his reach, and all his secret ambitions, all his extraordinary energies, group themselves about the yearning to grasp it. Here we have an explanation of the curious restlessness that educated foreigners, as opposed to mere immigrants, always make a note of in the country; it is half aspiration and half impatience, with overtones of dread and timorousness.
August 19, 2013
Ironic, smart. Elitist and fun. A bit outdated, of course (it's funny to see Woodrow Wilson treated as a populist treacherous politician!) but still interesting. And, by the way, as the "credo" goes, quite true!
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July 14, 2016Interesting read
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