Cancel Culture: Neither New Nor Smart

Cancel culture, having risen today to unexpected prominence, is nonetheless nothing new. As long ago as 1979, Joseph Epstein remarked:

Was Shakespeare absolutely

sound on the women question? Dante, was he not strangely quiet on the subject of blacks? Cannot ample evidence be found to prove the works of Pushkin to be anti-ecology? I burlesque, though I expect none of us should be stunned to learn that in some university or other classical authors are put up on the rack of contemporary enlightenmen opinion, and found to be guilty of racism, sexism, elitism, or smoking in public places (Epstein 1979: 2).

These remarks could scarcely have been situated in a more fitting context than they were, being delivered in a commentary on the works of H. L. Mencken, the columnist notorious for his irreverent style and biting criticisms. Nor could Epstein habe picked a better example than Mencken to illustrate his point that any particular opinions an intellectual may have held are far less important than his or her “point of view”, that is, broad outlook on life (see Epstein 1979: 2-3).

There is a widespread perception of H. L. Mencken as racist and anti-Semitic, although the extent to which this is correct has been debated (Hart 2018: 13). In any case, the image bore fruit when,

in a foretaste of the contemporary felling of Confederate monuments, […] the National Press Club removed Mencken’s name from its library (Hart 2018: 13).

This looks very much like an outrageous insult for the National Press Club, of all institutions, to deliver to Mencken, who, as history professor John Rossi acknowledged even as he criticised him, had “changed American journalism much in the way that Hemingway transformed American fiction” (quoted in Hart 2018: 14). Perhaps it could have been justified — but it was not. Even if Mencken was racist, this can to a great extent be excused by understanding that he was a product of his time. Meanwhile, if one picks out the racism and stinging remarks about Jews, a grander point of view, to return to Epstein’s phrase, remains, and this is relevant, and may be valuable, to all mankind regardless of race. Thus, Epstein quotes from “Little Black Boy”, the autobiography of “Richard Wright, a Mississippi Negro raised in poverty and terror” (Epstein 1979: 4). Wright described his first wncounter with Mencken’s writing as follows:

That night in my rented room, while letting the hot water run over my can of pork and beans in the sink, I opened A Book of Prefaces and began to read. I was jarred and shocked by the style, the clear, clean, sweeping sentences. Why did he write like that? And how did one write like that? I pictured the man as a raging demon, slashing with his pen, consumed with hate, denouncing everything American, extolling everything European or German, laughing at the weaknesses of people, mocking God, authority. What was this? I stood up, trying to realize what reality lay behind the meaning of the words. ... Yes, this man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club. Could words be weapons? Well, yes, for here they were. Then, maybe, perhaps, I could use them as a weapon? No. It frightened me. I read on and what amazed me was not that he said, but how on earth any body had the courage to say it (quoted in Epstein 1979: 4).

This account shows the liberating power which Mencken’s style, his sense of life, his “point of view” had for a poor black man. Yet it seems that the National Press Club ignored the bigger picture of Mencken, this pioneer of journalism, and threw the baby out with the bathwater over some particular and non-essential elements of his work.

A similar misjudgement was seen in horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s case. In 2015, Sunand Tryambak (better known as “S. T.”) Joshi, possibly the world’s leading expert on Lovecraft, returned the two World Fantasy Awards which he had received and announced his intention to boycott future World Fantasy Conventions (Joshi 2015). His reason for these actions was, as he stated in an open letter,

the decision of the World Fantasy Convention to discard the bust of H. P. Lovecraft as the emblem of the World Fantasy Award [because of Lovecraft’s racism] (ibid.).

Again, we see an example of prioritising the relatively insignificant over the crucial. For who would dare dispute that in terms of literature, which is, after all, the field with which the World Fantasy Awards should presumably be concerned, the use of Lovecraft’s figure as a prize for extraordinary achievements was wholly justified? According to Curt Wohleber,

he was the man who brought the currently thriving genre of supernatural fiction into the twentieth century (Wohleber 1995).

Stephen King writes:

Lovecraft […] opened the way for me, as he had done for others before me. [I]t is his shadow, so long and gaunt, and his eyes, so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since (quoted in Wohleber 1995).

Why sully the names of history’s august builders, who have left to all humankind a legacy worth treasuring? Why this blind crusade against anything remotely unsavory in our past? Maybe the best explanation remains Darryl Hart’s: “Americans […] have little room for writers who mirror our own complications — or hold them up strenuously before our eyes” (Hart 2018: 14).

Sources

Epstein, Joseph. 1979. “H. L. MENCKEN: THE ART OF POINT OF VIEW.” Menckeniana 71: 2-11.

Hart, Darryl G.. 2018. “Mencken Mirrors Our Own Complexities.” Menckeniana 223: 12-14.

Joshi, S. T.. 2015. “November 10, 2015 — The World Fantasy Award.” S. T.’s Blog. Accessed 10.06.2021. http://stjoshi.org/news2015.html.

Wohleber, Curt. 1995. “The Man Who Can Scare Stephen King.” American Heritage. Accessed 10.06.2021. https://www.americanheritage.com/man-who-can-scare-stephen-king.