Cris Alarcon]
I did not vote for Trump for my own (moral) reasons, but the plurality of voters did. Now I am beginning to understand that many Americans decided to “Hoist the Black Flag” by voting in Trump.
‘Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats‘ — H.L. Mencken
I heard this quote twice in one day (Dr. Who & Broadchurch – Sherri was watching one and Amber was watching the other and I overheard the quote on both) so I started thinking about it.
First thought was it meant “going pirate” but it was more. I had only one quote from Mencken that I had heard before, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” [A well known quote to anyone in the Marketing field]
“The quote, from Mencken’s 1919 Prejudices (First Series), is in full: “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
“Hoisting the black flag is a reference to piracy. The Jolly Roger’s history is well covered on Wikipedia and shows the many documented designs used, including the use of plain black flags by pirates.
“Ships use flags even today as a method of communicating visually with one another at sea. By international law, ships must fly their national flag to aid in identification. Pirates belonged no nation. A pirate’s flag was not only identification but was also a symbol of terror because it meant ‘no quarter given,’ essentially, the pirates intended to catch the other ship, board it and kill everyone on board.
“Mencken was a very funny writer, critic, essayist, and observer. His book, Prejudices (First Series) can be downloaded in several formats. The phrase ‘hoist the black flag’ did not originate with him, but he did apply it in a humorous and poignant way.”
That got me wondering who this Mecken was and was he as cynical as it seemed… and that was answered by El Guapo, 9 years ago:
“In order to understand this quote, you have to understand a little bit about H.L. Mencken. He was an extremely cynical person, disgusted with conformity, and firm in the belief that the majority opinion was (almost) always wrong, and that customs and traditions were (almost) always silly.
Here are some of his other quotes:
“Democracy is the pathetic belief in the wisdom of collective ignorance.“
“It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.“
“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.“
“No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
Given this context, you can see that the quote is saying that every “normal” (i.e., sensible) person should occasionally have to urge to become a “pirate” (raise the black flag) and kill (not literally, of course) all of the conformists around them.
My belief, “Whosoever be a Man, must be a nonconformist.”
—
From “Self-Reliance”
By Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — “But these impulses may be from below, not from above.” I replied, ‘They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil’s child, I will live then from the devil.’ No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The bystanders look askance on him in the public street or in the friend’s parlor. If this aversion had its origin in the contempt and resistance like his own he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour face of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause — disguise no god, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid, as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with pockthread, do. Else if you would be a man speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool’s word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dare not say ‘I think,”I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts: in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. There is not time to it. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
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