… is from page 16 of H.L. Mencken’s, A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (1995); specifically, it’s from Mencken’s Preface to his and George Jean Nathan’s 1920 book, The American Credo:
The whole thinking of the country thus runs down the channel of mob emotion; there is no actual conflict of ideas, but only a succession of crazes.
DBx: Strictly speaking, Mencken here exaggerates, but only just a bit. His larger point about crazes stands.
Underlying each successive craze is an idea, or set of ideas, usually either half-baked or completely bonkers. “America’s middle-class has been impoverished by Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and other billionaires!” “Our greater access to goods and services from abroad results in us having less access to goods and services in total!” “The U.S. trade deficit with China proves that China is mistreating Americans! And ditto the U.S. trade deficit with Canada!” “Immigrants come to America to aggressively steal our jobs and to lazily live off of the U.S. welfare state!” “Government-run grocery stores will bring an abundance of groceries to inner cities!” “As long as creditors are willing to lend to the U.S. government, the accumulation of U.S. government debt isn’t a problem!” “Rising prices in the aftermath of natural disasters are caused by greed!”
Fortunately, there are some sound and serious ideas, mostly those called “classical liberal,” always in competition with such nutty ones. Liberal idea are (as the late Bob Tollison never tired of saying) “part of the equilibrium” – meaning, the development, refinement, and promulgation of liberal ideas reduce the negative consequences of the far-more-numerous whackadoodle ideas that are the standard fare served up by politicians, professors, and pundits.
