Mencken and Modernism- Rachel Abboudi

Hyperbole

Hy-per-bo-le; noun

Definition:

Extravagant exaggeration (as “mile-high ice-cream cones”)

(www.merriam-webster.com)

During our exploration of Mencken in class, many, if not all, of us found his sweeping elitist generalizations pretty offensive. Often, I was completely appalled, rereading passages like “the difference between these negligent whites and the disfranchised Negroes is only superficial” (81). I’d cringe, thinking to myself, “did he really just write that?” No one would contest that the shock factor in this piece is painfully apparent.

From a pedagogical perspective, I would argue that, whatever Mencken’s goal is with this particular piece, he’s achieving it through those tones, arguments, and brash statements that we all find so offensive. No need to get insulted, Mencken is simply trying to get his point across to his audience by meeting them at their level. Through the material we have read in this course, it is more than obvious that society had “dumbed-down” in the twenties. Knowledge itself was being bottled and sold to the general masses to be guzzled up quickly and spit back at dinner parties. Wisdom, opinions, and interests lost genuineness, while beauty in literature and art failed to inspire an uninterested nation. This is a brief picture of the society, Mencken, a thinking, feeling, and opinionated individual, was writing for. To view yourself as the only intellectually aware person in your community; now, that sounds scary. Mencken is faced with the following question: How do you make a crazed, apathetic nation stop and really listen? Easy: You give them a sucker punch. You MAKE them feel.

A most engaging tool, the use of exaggeration hooks a reader. When an argument is exaggeratedly blunt, or even offensive, such language appeals to human emotion. Whether it is passion for the cause or, simply, anger or guilt, the reader is offended and, consequently, drawn in. Our class has been the perfect example of this phenomenon. Students, who did not really care what Mencken had to say, suddenly become annoyed with his tone and insulted by his offensive generalizations. Whether you agree with his argument or not, Mencken has definitely succeeded in making you care.

Though his attack on national brainlessness may plunge you as the reader into a fit of defensiveness, Mencken is simply begging you and society to question. Ascribing a mob mentality to the general masses, a mentality that is both illogical and fueled by fear, Mencken is expressing frustration in the community’s negligence in investigating opinions and ideas. The underlying argument in Mencken’s rant is that society, especially a “democratic” society shouldering the responsibilities of representation and personal freedoms, needs to be one able to filter the jerks from holding public office and the foolish political ideas from taking effect. With his “illogical man” theory, Mencken has painted a scary caricature of a brainless nation being guided, as a puppy, with treats and a stick. Mencken attacks the intelligence of the common man to stir in him the ambition to oexclusively accept those ideas that are “borne out of immense accumulations of empiric corroboration” (34). A culture built on the foundation of the individual’s right to elect to office whomever he so pleases presents a massive responsibility on the individual to keep educated and informed. As a reader separated from the petty insults and open to Mencken’s overall argument, one can see that Mencken is outlining potential danger in national naïveté and apathy, and begs through his writing for social and political awareness in order to prevent political manipulation.

Now I think it’s easier to understand why Mencken’s rant does not offer the effected reader a viable solution to the problem of democracy, a significant point of frustration for the class. It does not offer solution because, by definition, it cannot. Framed in extended hyperbole, Mencken’s rant is a cry for human awareness and heightened sensitivity disguised as a political piece calling for political reformation. Mencken does not argue the benefits of one form of government over the other. On the contrary, he seems to give every governmental structure a run for its money. He argues that democracy is a system of manipulating the country through creating fearful realities for the masses, “The whole history of the country has been a history of melodramatic pursuits of horrendous monsters, most of them imaginary” (40). However, simultaneously, Mencken takes on the disadvantages of the alternative head-on. No monarch, Mencken argues, is as free as he may seem to make his own political decisions, “he had still to bear it in mind that his people, oppressed too much, could always rise against him” (76). In his analysis of different governmental structures on the political spectrum, isn’t it obvious that he is underscoring the potential power an aware and cognizant nation has? Mencken simply craves national political awareness and for the nation to recognize and harness its potential political influence. He is not trying to write the government into reformation and, therefore, offers no governmental solution.

As a reader of Mencken, you can’t let yourself get stuck on the offensive hyperbole or you’ll miss the whole point of his rant. Go ahead; associate yourself with the thinking minority! As a thinking scholar, separate yourself from the material and think about what he’s saying in its context. Does an intelligent, educated, and painfully socially aware Mencken really hate every minority or underprivileged person? Or is his generalization so offensive and so radical that it accomplishes exactly what it has set out to do: make the reader stop, get angry, and think?