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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the chief problem with political theorists?
(a) They have little sense of history.
(b) They are too antagonistic to the current political system.
(c) They attempt to dignify the political order of their day.
(d) They hate politics in general.

2. Privately, politicians are what kind of people?
(a) Exceedingly eccentric.
(b) Charming individuals.
(c) Lying wretches.
(d) Criminals.

3. What is Mencken's hope for democracy?
(a) It may lead to monarchy someday.
(b) It will finally deliver much-needed assistance to the poor.
(c) It is a self-limiting disease.
(d) Mencken has absolutely no hope for democracy.

4. What does Mencken see as the problem with contemporary Protestantism?
(a) Protestants suffer from a Jewish weakness for poetry.
(b) All modern Protestants are wishy-washy centrists.
(c) There are few, sensible, centrist Protestants left.
(d) Protestants have forgotten the teachings of Jesus Christ.

5. What kind of people are most often forgotten by historical records, per Chapter 12?
(a) Respectful and intelligent men.
(b) Great warriors.
(c) Courageous women.
(d) The commoners.

Short Answer Questions

1. Before democracy came to be, what did people believe this system of government to be?

2. What is the subject of Chapter 7?

3. Why is Mencken unable to embrace democratic political theory, as he himself states it in Chapter 9?

4. Which is NOT one of the features Mencken imagines for the Confederacy, had it survived the Civil War?

5. What group of people has been "overestimated" throughout the course of human history?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Mencken's thought experiment, in which he imagines if the Confederacy had won the Civil War.

2. Who is Professor Thorstein Veblen, and what is Mencken's opinion of him and his work?

3. Describe Mencken's conception of the Anglo-Saxon American. What are this person's flaws?

4. Describe Mencken's contention that democracy is a "self-limiting disease." What does he mean by that? Is there any good aspects to democracy?

5. What is the average person's opinion of government, according to Mencken?

6. What is Mencken's view of monogamy/marriage?

7. Discuss Mencken's history of democracy. Before it arrived, what did people think of democracy? How was it conceived? How did it evolve?

8. What is democracy's fundamental flaw? What aspect of human nature motivates democracy?

9. Describe Mencken's opinion of George Washington. Why does Mencken admire him? Why doesn't Mencken believe Washington would do well in a contemporary political climate?

10. What is Mencken's opinion of government? What is the role of government? Is one system of government preferable to another?

(see the answer keys)

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