>Tfw I never see H.L. Mencken mentioned on /lit/
I only just found out about him today, browsing Wikiquotes whilst stuck in work, but he seems like a thoroughly based /lit/erati patrician. Which of his works does /lit/ recommend?
>"How did one of America's seemingly great rationalists and modernists come to regard Roosevelt as more worthy of condemnation than Hitler? The answer, on the evidence of this and other studies, is that Mencken was a German nationalist, an insecure small-town petit bourgeois, a childless hypochondriac with what seems on the evidence of these pages to have been a room-temperature libido, an antihumanist as much as an atheist, a man prone to the hyperbole and sensationalism he distrusted in others and not as easy with the modern world and its many temptations and diversions as he liked it to be supposed." - Christopher Hitchens
If you can find yourself on the wrong side of edgy contrarian pseuds like big Chris Hitch, you must have been doing something right.
>>8118861
There was a Nietzsche thread yesterday. I think Mencken could rightly be described as the true heir to Nietzsche, or one of them at least. I never really liked Heidegger much.
On that note, I'd recommend:
>The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1907)
>The Gist of Nietzsche (1910)
Only thing I didn't like about him is his overestimation of America.
>>8118861
He's the American Evola. Thank fuck this place doesn't mention him.
>>8118871
>He's the American Evola
Really? Thanks for the recommend.
>>8118861
>browsing Wikiquotes
Ironically, I hope.
>>8118861
I think he mainly wrote newspaper articles desu. He surprised me when I first found him, though. You wouldn't expect him to have done so well in America, considering the stuff he was coming out with.
>>8118871
/lit/ is not your hugbox.
>>8118882
I only browse sincerely.
>>8118886
Wasnn't he a social Darwinist? Pretty much right in the American centre
>>8118861
>edgy contrarian pseuds like big Chris Hitch
I hope he's included in that image that the tripfag made.
>>8118913
>Pretty much right in the American centre
Maybe a century ago.
what should i read from him?
>>8118925
Nothing.
This board has basically become /pol/-lite, or else /pol/ after having read a book or two. With that in mind, it doesn't surprise me in the least to see this relatively recent love affair with Schopenhauer and all the other bigots who were rightly left behind (and forgotten) in the 18th/19th centuries.
It seems that so long as you hate women/gays/etc, you can find yourself with pride of place upon this board nowadays.
>>8119000
Triggered Trips :^)
>>8118871
What? How?
Anyway OP, read his Prejudices: Essays series.
>>8119017
No, I'm being serious. It's hard to have a serious discussion on this board any more, when people like OP keep digging up their favourite irrelevant bigot every five minutes.
>>8119057
Whined 24/7 about modernity, democracy, equality, etc. Pretty straightforward.
>>8119104
This.
>>8119086
>waa people I don't like wrote books and other people I don't like talk about them
If Mencken is so intellectually bankrupt then I'm sure it will be the work of a minute for you to explain why without using snarl words like bigot.
>>8119154
1) I look up the dictionary definition of 'bigot'
2) I read everything he ever wrote about women/black people/etc, bearing in mind the definition of that word
>>8119180
I don't see how him being intolerant of people means that his case for why he is intolerant is necessarily flawed.
>>8119190
Of course you don't, /pol/tard autist.
>>8119200
>ableism
>>8119200
What a great and tolerant argument :^)
>>8118925
Chrestomathy, idk if it's in print but I picked it up at my uni library last semster. He hand picked his favorite / most lasting pieces and put them all together. He's hilarious to read. I assume he isn't taught much because he probably makes lefties explode.
>>8118861
I really enjoyed him at 16, along with Maddox
>>8119000
God damn it, if a mysogynist nazi serial killer says 2 + 2 is 4, it's still sound.
Bait taken and I'm still triggered.
>>8118861
Hitchens hate him because Mencken WAS Hitchens.
Edgy contrarian anglo who likes Nietzsche (aka too dumb to read Hegel).
I'm a huge Mencken fan, but I would steer clear of his writing on Nietzsche. It was very early in terms of Nietzsche scholarship and got a LOT of things wrong.
Go for A Mencken Chrestomathy.
>>8119200
I'm autistic and retarded and your terminology is extremely hurtful. Do you ever stop to think what effect the words you use have on groups less privileged than you?
>>8119271
>who likes Nietzsche (aka too dumb to read Hegel).
lmao
I really hope this is bait.
Is was a fabulous essayist and probably the greatest journalist of the 20th century. You don't have to agree with all of his views but you should read him either way.
>>8118861
A lot of Americans hated FDR during WW2, he fucking got elected 3 three times plus the New Deal and his Brain Trust full of kikes is the origin of SJWism, literally the proto-Obama and his policies are sucking the life out of this country to this date. Plenty of Americans who proudly fought the Nazis would have preferred Willkie.
Christopher Hitchens is a cunt. His argument is entirely ad hominem, a revisionist version of Whoopi Goldberg whining about Republicans at the Oscars, that faggot libertarian meme ""philosopher"" can't contend with Mencken.
>implying FDR wasn't a demagogue, a Caesar just like Hitler or Stalin
>>8119271
>Hitchens hate him because Mencken WAS Hitchens.
This. Contrarians always hate eachother; you either kowtow before them, or brace yourself for all the slander they can muster.
Which is a shame.
>>8119370
>Implying that isn't Hunter S. Thompson
>>8119424
Hunter S. Thompson made the same dumb statements as Hitchens, another jealous second rater who can't compete.
>“And Joyce was a poor sick fucker who probably died with his balls somewhere up around his navel. None of that for me, thanks.”
>"he had less secks than me, penises lol"
When will these memesters stop pissing on dead people?
>>8119449
In fairness, you don't get anywhere if you're not 'outrageous' nowadays. The downside is that this results in pathetic phony outrage.
