"The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt"
About this Quote
Mencken’s genius is that he treats contempt not as a regrettable moral lapse but as a social instrument - and he refuses to apologize for it. “The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt” has the neat, swaggering logic of a street proverb dressed in evening clothes: if disdain is the disease, the medicine is an equal dose administered back at the source. It’s a line designed to scandalize polite people, and to reassure the readers Mencken liked best: those who suspect that civility is often just cowardice with good posture.
The intent is less about escalating hostility than about puncturing pretension. Mencken lived in an America busy canonizing its own pieties - politics as uplift, religion as certainty, journalism as virtue. His signature move was to treat those claims as frauds, and contempt was his chosen solvent. The subtext is that contempt, unreturned, becomes power. If one side gets to sneer while the other insists on decorum, the sneerer wins twice: first by belittling, then by defining the terms of acceptable response.
“Counter-contempt” is Mencken’s anti-sentimental version of self-defense. It’s not persuasion; it’s deterrence. He’s implying that some actors aren’t reachable by argument because they’re not arguing in good faith - they’re posturing. In that world, respect is not a virtue but a resource to be guarded. The line also reveals Mencken’s darker faith: that public life runs on status games, and the only reliable check on arrogance is a sharper, louder refusal to be impressed.
The intent is less about escalating hostility than about puncturing pretension. Mencken lived in an America busy canonizing its own pieties - politics as uplift, religion as certainty, journalism as virtue. His signature move was to treat those claims as frauds, and contempt was his chosen solvent. The subtext is that contempt, unreturned, becomes power. If one side gets to sneer while the other insists on decorum, the sneerer wins twice: first by belittling, then by defining the terms of acceptable response.
“Counter-contempt” is Mencken’s anti-sentimental version of self-defense. It’s not persuasion; it’s deterrence. He’s implying that some actors aren’t reachable by argument because they’re not arguing in good faith - they’re posturing. In that world, respect is not a virtue but a resource to be guarded. The line also reveals Mencken’s darker faith: that public life runs on status games, and the only reliable check on arrogance is a sharper, louder refusal to be impressed.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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