Word: mencken
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This facet of the diary, more than any other, has prompted comment and dismay from the current standard-bearers of the literary establishment, who have launched a lively controversy in the pages of such mass circulation journals as the New York Review of Books about the Mencken legacy in American letters. There are those who suggest it should be revised in light of his retrograde social views...
...what these commentators have often refused to acknowledge is that the moments of anti-Semitism and racism in Mencken's diary are not--and cannot be--separated from the larger picture of the life which he conveys. Yes, he makes a number of remarks which would today be considered "offensive speech," ranging from concerns about the "colored" moving into his old Baltimore neighborhood and "destroying" it to incredulousness at the "Jewish" appearance of someone he knows to be a Christian. But, perhaps more significantly for understanding Mencken's biases, he comes across as an almost unknowing bigot...
...thought of being revealed in a Menken expose left many of America's most prominent citizens quaking in their shoes, the author himself seems to simply accept his prejudices as of a part of life. What might surprise many readers of the diary is the actual extent to which Mencken fails to hold himself and his personal views up to his usually rigorous standard of review...
This lack of self-awareness on Mencken's part is indicative of the ideology which spawned his fame. His was a public life, and a privileged one, and he conceived of his role in American society as that of the unassailable critic, as one who thought his message was as important as his means. An eternal fondness for dismissing sacred cows did not mean that Mencken as a man or as a writer even began to address...
...this, in the final analysis, is what is the most disconcerting part of the Mencken diary. The Mencken of these pages is an unsympathetic figure, historically interesting, perhaps, but unsympathetic nonetheless. He is caught up in the petty prejudices and mundane concerns that dominate most of his contemporaries' lives, though his writings and reputation had taught us to expect more...