But Emerson, a quote from whom is this blog’s slogan, urged people to tell the truth even if it put them at odds with society and propriety — not because he wanted humanity torn down but because he wanted to see it elevated. And Emerson was in turn an under-appreciated influence on Nietzsche, who was in turn a huge influence on Mencken, whose name graces the chair held at the libertarian Cato Institute by humorist P.J. O’Rourke, who the _Village Voice_ once dismissively said we were trying to imitate at the _New York Press_ in the mid-90s when I wrote for it (though my fellow NYPress veteran, the abovementioned Nybakken, says the paper’s now merging with the far-blander _Our Town_ paper here on the Upper East Side, likely losing more of its old un-p.c. fighting spirit in the process).

In any case, here’s some more Mencken quotes while we’re at it, and may the sentimental liars and the heartstring-tugging bullshitters of this world — including a great many pious ones — never rest easy while such words are remembered:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/h_l_mencken.html

I’m going to try and make this debate. It’s something I talk about with my friends, who have various different takes on the subject. The question does concern me — as a pretty pro-immigration person (and a big fan of Middle Eastern cuisine), I’d love to be able to take Mr. Schwartz’s side. But I’m skeptical of organized religion in general, and there definitely are things about Islam in particular that make me nervous. I find it kind of odd that my liberal friends seem to have no problem talking trash and expressing their fears about bigoted, Bible-beating Christian fanatics, but if I raise concerns about the repressive and intolerant characteristics of some Muslims, they get extremely uncomfortable and sometimes imply insensitivity or even racism on my part.
I guess it’s some sort of knee-jerk PC reaction — questioning the beliefs/practices of white Christian Americans is one thing, but taking issue with the beliefs/practices of foreigners with darker skin is not civil, even if said beliefs/practices go against everything liberals supposedly stand for (womens’ rights, freedom of expression, etc). This seems to be the big contradiction in the whole “multiculturalism” idea that I’m sure from what you’ve written was prevalent at Brown, as it was at Vassar — that all cultures are “equal” and should be respected, even ones that have no interest in respecting others. Am I hateful because I have a problem with people who hold hateful beliefs??
Thomas Sowell in a recent article wrote “No culture can stand still … there are too many outsiders who want all sorts of cultures to be frozen where they are, preserved like museum exhibits.”
In their rush to display how tolerant and non-judgemental they are about various cultures’ traditions, beliefs, etc, I think a lot of people who buy the multiculturalist argument miss the fact that if that logic had been applied in the history of our own culture, there’d have been none of the progressive strides that we’ve managed to make in the past century. I mean, what were the abolitionists, the civil rights activists, the feminists, etc doing? They were taking issue with a lot of the unpleasant, intolerant aspects of American culture and working to get rid of them. Had they ‘respected’ the traditional racism and sexism of a lot of American life, we might still have Jim Crow and women without the vote.
Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent. But the Islam question is interesting. I’ve hung out a few times with a Pakistani guy from the job I started recently. Great guy (and a Brown alum as well, I believe). I’m pretty sure his family is Muslim, although he doesn’t seem to be practicing. It’s something I’d like to talk about with him, but it’s kind of an uncomfortable thing to bring up, obviously.