Life & Wisdom Quote by H. L. Mencken

Mencken’s line is a scalpel disguised as a quip: it cuts criticism down to its most embarrassing hidden organ, the pre-existing bias it pretends not to have. “Prejudice” is the detonator here, an accusation of moral and intellectual laziness. But Mencken doesn’t stop at calling critics bigots in nicer clothes; he zeroes in on the trick that makes the whole enterprise socially acceptable: “made plausible.” That phrase is the tell. It implies craftsmanship, not truth. Criticism, in this frame, is rhetoric first and judgment second, a performance of reasonability engineered to give a gut reaction the alibi of logic.

The subtext is pure Mencken: distrust institutions that sell certainty. Critics, like pundits and moral reformers in his essays, often operate as cultural gatekeepers, translating personal taste into public verdicts. “Plausible” suggests the standard isn’t accuracy but just-enough coherence to pass inspection. If you can assemble the right vocabulary, cite the right authorities, strike the right tone of weary expertise, your bias graduates into “analysis.”

Context matters: Mencken wrote in the thick of early 20th-century American moral crusades and mass-media opinion making, when newspapers, reviewers, and civic scolds policed what counted as respectable art, politics, even pleasure. His jab lands because it’s not a romantic defense of art against critics; it’s an indictment of human psychology in editorial form. We don’t start from neutrality and reason our way to judgments. We start from judgments and hire reason as a press secretary.