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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who rules American culture, according to Chapter 10?

2. What does the "believer" type of person inevitably do?

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

4. What comparison does Mencken make between man and animal in Chapter 1?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. Is morality necessary in Mencken's view? How many people are moral people? Is there a good and evil, or is that a human-created concept?

2. What effect did the Civil War have on the American South, and why was this conflict so disastrous to Mencken from a cultural standpoint?

3. What does Mencken feel about the relationship between science and religion?

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

5. What does Mencken see as a popular misconception about death? What is his opinion of suicide?

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

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. In Chapter 1, what comparison does Mencken make between man and animal? Who is "superior"?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the Chapter 29 "buffoonery" in which Mencken portrays a dialogue involving Pharoah Cheops.

1) Summarize the "plot" and premise of the story.

2) Discuss how the story relates to contemporary concerns.

3) Speculate as to why Mencken may have used Pharaoh Cheops and his world to comment on contemporary issues. What does Mencken accomplish by commentary designed in this fashion?

Essay Topic 2

In Chapters 5 and 6, Mencken discusses morality, and crime and punishment, respectively.

1) Discuss Mencken's belief about the origin of morality, and how it evolved. Can morality change, or is it static?

2) Discuss Mencken's thoughts about Christian morality in general.

3) Discuss Mencken's opinion of contemporary forms of punishment for committed crimes. What is the role of punishment?

Essay Topic 3

Describe in-depth Mencken's views of the following people:

1) Abraham Lincoln

2) George Washington

3) Ulysses S. Grant

4) Theodore Roosevelt

5) Grover Cleveland

(see the answer keys)

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