People alerted me to David Mamet’s article in the Village Voice – Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’- wondering if the playwright/filmmaker had been reading this blog. I doubt it, but I would be flattered if he had. In any case, it’s a cause for celebration when anyone breaks with the sclerotic Hollywood-Broadway orthodoxy – and when it’s someone as distinguished as Mamet, it could be cause for a holiday. His words:
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life.
Who does?
Great read — the dramatist’s touch in every para. The moral-equivalency laundry list at the top is still too far liberal-orthodox for my taste (can we ever just do a little research on “Bush Lied Us Into War”?), but he’s at least half way, and that’s twice better than no way.
I just read his book “Five Cities of Refuge”, and had wondered if we would see an awakening like this.
First of all, your blog is one of the best on the internet. You’re a reasonable voice amongst the chaos of internet insanity.
Ass kissing aside, I’ve often wondered if a liberal coming out of the closet is career suicide, given the intertwining of politics and entertainment. Maybe you could address this issue?
In politics when the Larry Craigs and the Eliot Spitzers are discovered you wonder who else in power differs so much btwg what they say and what they do?
I bet there are many more Mamets out there.
What struck me as particularly interesting about that essay is that what Mamet calls the “tragic” (i.e., conservative) understanding of human nature has always been an important part of his work. So it just dawned on him now that people want to get ahead and can act badly under pressure, how many years after he wrote Glengarry Glenross? Hello? I think he understood this at some level all along, but when he left his playwright’s desk he closed off that part of his brain until his recent epiphany.
It’s a club in the Fenway
A club in the Fenway
I loved “Glengarry Glenross” but in the political frame it’s such a massive blunt-force indictment of capitalism that the “tragedy of human nature” theme is IMHO less conservative/cautionary and more liberal/appeal to emotion–the bad people exploit and the sad people get exploited.
Jack Lemmon’s character’s willingness to sacrifice himself for his family is about the only true conservative note I can recall, and even this is pointedly portrayed not as heroic but rather as abjectly humiliating. His good behavior brings him no reward of any sort, spirit or material. His beneficiaries are shown as ungrateful and likely unworthy of the poor old guy’s miserable and draining efforts. So everything about him is just utterly futile.
Yes, it’s a great film, but if you’re prone to depression, run run run in the other direction.
OMG, not only was the essay excellent but I dared read the comments and it took until the fifth one before I got to a Jew-hating moron who didn’t even know who Mamet was!! And before that comments of praise for Thomas Sowell in the Village Voice!!! I didn’t go any further; why tempt the fates when I’m obviously in Bizarro-world.
Captain Hate beat me to it on the Vichy Voice comments – the fever swamps really get percolating when there’s an apostate to burn at the stake. Some of the less vile posts are reminiscent of the way 60′s “protest” radicals looked at Bob Dylan when he wisely chose to be his own man and follow his muse (as he always had, and continues to do today) — many still can’t (or won’t) come to grips with it, like Joan Baez in Scorcese’s “No Direction Home” documentary.
I’m not thrilled with the “Bush stole the election” canard – debunked in 0.2 two seconds by anyone with half an open mind and internet access – but one one thing at a time, I guess. Baby steps.
“You know why, mister? Because you drove a HYUNDAI to get here tonight; I drive an $80,000 BMW, THAT’S my name!”
Mamet seemed to be saying that, more than anything, he was willing to see the warts of liberalism alongside those of conservatism which I suppose is probably the sensible route to take.
Now if only those who see Obama as SuperJesusMan would open their eyes too and quit scaring the crap out of me.
roger – i thought of you as I read mamet’s essay, which fans the flames of my new secret game (mirrored, i imagine, after the habits of homosexuals in times past): in it, every time i find myself enjoying a movie, or teleplay or book, i convince myself that its ostensibly left-liberal director and/or writer is really a closeted EX-democrat.
the great part is – it might even be true.
roger – i thought of you as I read mamet’s essay, which fans the flames of my new secret game (mirrored, i imagine, after the habits of homosexuals in times past): in it, every time i find myself enjoying a movie, or teleplay or book, i convince myself that its ostensibly left-liberal director and/or writer is really a closeted EX-democrat.
the great part is – it might even be true.
About Glengarry Glenn Ross: My father works in real estate and says the film version of the play is the most depressing movie he has ever seen because it’s a dead-on accurate portrayal of (some, not all) real estate firms. And my father is a Republican. I doubt it ever occured to him that the play is liberal or leftist.
Just a data point. I don’t know, I’ve never worked in real estate and never wanted to.
I enjoyed the essay, but couldn’t help but notice that the comments contained the typical liberal reaction: Don’t refute the message, attack the messenger.
To me, that is one of the worst aspects of liberalism.