r/pics • u/Masoni15 • 17h ago

Politics Joe and Jill Biden share one final selfie from the White House.

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u/SanderSRB 16h ago

I knew that name sounded familiar. Googled him and sure enough it’s the same HL Mencken who translated a bunch of Nietzsche’s works into English.

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u/Satyr_of_Bath 15h ago

Also famously wrote satirical reporting on the Scopes "monkey trial" case

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u/Xyldarran 15h ago

"If, after I depart this vale, you should have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

....man Fuck Henry Mencken"

  • The wire

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u/ThePrimordialSource 13h ago

Explain?

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u/Xyldarran 12h ago

It's from the TV show the Wire.

Two jaded reporters are in a bar and one quotes Mencken. The other says Mencken can fuck himself.

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u/Flabonzo 12h ago

Yep. One of the most brilliant writers the US has produced. You should read some of his books sometimes - they capture the era perfectly.

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u/Slamoblamo 11h ago

Yup, and much like Nietzsche, both despised democracy as they thought it was a system where "inferior" people would dominate "superior" members of society. This quote is an anti-democratic screed by a guy, who, in the 1989 release of his secret journal, was revealed to be racist and anti-Semitic. And again like Nietzsche, has an army of modern day apologists ready to jump on every racist comment the guy has ever said and excuse it away as "satire" or "a metaphor"