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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. What kind of men does a democracy produce?

2. What is the "altruist" motivated by?

3. How intelligent are women according to Mencken?

4. What kind of promises do politicians make?

5. How does Mencken define government?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Mencken's view of punishment for crime? What is the function of punishment?

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

3. In Chapter 1, how does Mencken's view of humanity coincide with that of the modern scientist?

4. What is Mencken's view of romantic love?

5. What is Mencken's opinion of the contemporary American South? What are its features? What rules the South?

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

7. Per Chapter 2, describe Mencken's summation of the following types of people: the romantic, the believer, the metaphysician, and the altruist.

8. 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?

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

10. Summarize Mencken's appraisal of Abraham Lincoln.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe in-depth Mencken's views of the following people (and specific works, if applicable):

1) Mark Twain

2) William Dean Howells

3) Edgar Allan Poe

4) Ralph Waldo Emerson

5) Walt Whitman

6) Ambrose Bierce

Essay Topic 2

1) Discuss Mencken's view of socialism. What effect has socialism has on the world?

2) Compare and contrast Mencken's view of capitalism with that of socialism.

3) Relate Mencken's view of human nature with his view of economics. How do the tendencies and reality of the human condition affect the effectiveness of economical models, for Mencken?

Essay Topic 3

Summarize Mencken's views on women. Discuss each of the following topics:

a) Women's level of intelligence

b) Women's level of civility

c) The institution of marriage, and how it affects men and women

d) The role of beauty in man-woman relationships

e) The role of romantic love in man-woman relationships

(see the answer keys)

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