Home / Personalities / H. L. Mencken
A scathing critic of American democracy, Mencken combined economic libertarianism, Nietzschean elitism, and militant atheism, attacking puritanism, mass culture, and popular faith in newspapers and essays.
Political topics
H. L. Mencken leans further toward liberty than 96% of the 569 personalities in the catalog.
Of all the topics, Power is where H. L. Mencken stands furthest from the rest.
On Immigration, H. L. Mencken sits close to the catalog median.
Here they share common ground with most personalities.
Ideological proximity
The closest among the 263 ideologies
A neoreactionary current that rejects democracy in favor of microstates run like firms. It favors competition among jurisdictions, free markets, the right of exit, and technological innovation as principles of government.
Philosophy created by Ayn Rand that exalts reason, individualism, and rational egoism, defending laissez-faire capitalism and the pursuit of one's own happiness as the supreme moral purpose of each person's life.
Original branch of liberalism that defends natural rights, property, free markets, and a minimal state, seeing individual freedom and the strict limitation of power as the foundations of a just society.
The most distant ideology
ReactionaryismFar-Right30%
A German philosopher, Stirner is the great reference of egoist anarchism, rejecting state, morality, and institutions as oppressive abstractions and placing the sovereign individual and their interests at the center of everything.
Also close, by dimension
Other similar profiles
Furthest from H. L. Mencken
A small state in the northeastern United States, New Hampshire is known for its strong libertarian culture, low taxation, absence of a state income tax, and a motto that exalts liberty above all.
Also close, by dimension
Furthest from H. L. Mencken
A pioneering modern merchant republic, the United Provinces were a confederation governed by a commercial oligarchy, marked by religious tolerance, free trade, and immense naval and financial power at their height.
Also close, by dimension
Furthest from H. L. Mencken