Morality is nothing but a struggle for safety
Interpretation
Morality stems from the desire to protect oneself and others, rather than being an inherent truth.
H. L. Mencken's quote suggests that what we often consider as moral standards and values are primarily motivated by a human instinct to ensure safety and security. Rather than viewing morality as a set of absolute principles, it can be seen as a social construct that evolves from the need to navigate interpersonal relationships in a way that minimizes harm and promotes well-being among individuals.
In practice
In a debate about ethical decision-making, this quote can highlight the underlying motivations behind moral choices.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.
To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.
It liberates the vandal to travel-you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction.
Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself.
So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.
In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.
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