David Mamet’s Progress
Mamet clearly has a polemical intention here with a very specific target. The book says to his former friends on the left, the ones who might pay attention anyway, I woke up — what about you? That makes it different from your normal run of conservative books that largely preach to the choir. Ann Coulter writes of the left to mock them. David Mamet’s intention is to convert them, a far more ambitious enterprise.
He does this in a deliberately Talmudic style with footnotes at the bottom of many pages that are often as interesting as the text itself. Sometimes the various chapters turn in on themselves, repeating themes with variations. But all of them seem to echo the famous words attributed to the great rabbi Hillel: “If not now, when?”
If not now, when, indeed. It remains to be seen to the degree Mamet will be successful, but his work could not appear at a more pivotal moment. Western civilization is approaching bankruptcy, literally and spiritually. The welfare state has been revealed to be a self-destructive farce with no long-term benefit to anyone but a small group of quasi-totalitarian elites. Spain, Greece and Portugal are on the brink of economic catastrophe. Other countries are sure to follow. The optimism of the “Arab Spring” barely lasted longer than Warhol’s fifteen minutes. Israel, the proverbial canary in the coal mine, stands surrounded as never before. And America, in Mark Steyn’s epochal phrase, is definitely alone… and sinking.
How did this all come to pass? There are many reasons, obviously. But David Mamet places much of the blame squarely on my generation and his:
We were self-taught in the sixties to award ourselves merit for membership in a superior group–irrespective of our group’s accomplishments. We continue to do so, irrespective of accomplishments, individual or communal, having told each other we were special. We learned that all one need do is refrain from trusting anybody over thirty; that all people are alike, and to judge their behavior was “judgmental”; that property is theft. As we did not investigate these assertions or their implications, we could not act upon them and felt no need to do so. For we were the culmination of history, superior to all those misguided who had come before, which is to say all humanity.
The Secret Knowledge is a cry of “Basta!” Buy this book. But, more importantly, buy another copy for your liberal friends, the ones you may still have. They may even read it. And then… who knows?
I hope Mamet can win a few converts. I feel engaged in the same mission, and I am currently at a low point of exhaustion. I was never a liberal, more of a conservative Democrat (there used to be such a thing), and spent a lot of years as a political moderate. Now, I’m a full-blown Conservative, living and working in a land of Liberals.
Here is my great dismay and frustration. I have finally realized that Liberals DO NOT READ. Most don’t read anything. Those that do read, read only ideologically approved sources. None of them seem to really wrestle with ideas, especially from the old writers. That’s logical, really, because once you think everything is relative, why bother with all that work?
“…low point of exhaustion…”
My experience, too. My own family’s thinking process consists of shuffling a bunch of worn-out left-liberal slogans and offering them up as arguments…
How did my kids become so brain-dead? Where did I go wrong in guiding their education….?
I dont know…
Brain dead liberals is a tautology.
…or a redundancy since a tautology is a series of self-reinforcing statements that cannot be disproved because the statements depend on the assumption that they are already correct. I think the statement is demonstrative and no assumption is necessary.
Liberals read, but they read books that validate their utopian world view, a feature of the populist-progressive movement. I wrote about their odd views here: http://clarespark.com/2009/08/09/what-is-a-corporatist-liberal-and-why-should-they-frighten-us/. Or try this one: http://clarespark.com/2009/12/16/perceptions-of-the-enemy-the-left-looks-at-the-right-and-vice-versa/. The corporatist liberals are authoritarian and hold to statism and paternalism but sincerely believe that they are doing the Lord’s work. They are not stupid or unread, but mistaken about economics and what aids the upward mobility that many of them have achieved.
“Liberals DO NOT READ. Most don’t read anything. Those that do read, read only ideologically approved sources. None of them seem to really wrestle with ideas, especially from the old writers.”
Thank you for a perfect example of “over generalization.” It amazes my how seeming intelligent people so easily allow themselves to spread such logical fallacies. I plan to use your posting and others on this page to demonstrate how not build an argument for my writing students.
PJM reader and Huffington Post readers have one thing in common. They are so busy pointing out the splinters in other people’s eyes, they fail to notice the planks in there own.
Kinda – 99% of liberals do not go out of their comfort zone and read (much less seek out) writings by people with different ideas. It’s painfully obvious to those of us on the right who try to engage in discussions with libs. They have their hermetically sealed world view and they stick to it. At best, their idea of learning about conservatism is reading books like, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”
Conservatives can’t avoid leftist writings because leftists are so overwhelmingly dominant in the media. We’re bombarded with leftist cant from grade school to college. We’re marinated in it by the media. We’re confronted with cheap leftist sloganeering passed off as reasoned debate all the time by your liberal friends who don’t read books of any kind, liberal or conservative.
The vast majority of liberals’ philosophy is fixed and received from media and from attendant social pressures to fit in with what is considered most socially acceptable. There is little to no thought involved. I’ve lived in Northern California most of my life. Believe me, I’m an expert on these liberal pathologies.
There was a poll here in Israel, asking people questions to determine how ghettoized they were. They found that the most isolated segment was not the right-wing religious, in spite of our intentional attempts to isolate ourselves, but the far left.
Guess who makes up a large portion of the media in both countries? (For the US, see John Corry’s My Times.) And of course they talk TO EACH OTHER, so you can imaging what this does to Middle East reporting.
Oh, one other note. Be very careful with English internet versions of Israeli newspapers. They can write whaever they want there; the standards are lower (I believe) than the Hebrew printed versions.
Well, it’s something of an “over-generalization,” Kinda… but only kinda. As one who has spent a good deal of time on both sides of the fence, and as someone who has read both Marx and Milton Friedman, I can attest that more conservatives I know are cognizant of liberal views than vice-versa. It’s just how things are right now because of the cultural indoctrination of our society. … Here’s an interesting example. Post 9/11 I was surprised how few of my liberal friends actually read the Koran – or even had interest in so doing. Sad, but true.
Mr. Simon,
I’m very curious to know – especially since my reading list is two years long – does Mr. Mamet give any indication of having read about the sources of contemporary liberalism? After all, it didn’t begin in the 60s, however much it accelerated then.
Does he discuss at all Rousseau or Hegel or Dewey or any of the Progressive writers of the late-19th and early 20th centuries?
Thanks for your review and, in advance, for taking the time to answer.
Jeff
Can it, Junior.
That was a blog comment, not an essay. I have the resources and experiences to elaborate the point, but this isn’t really the format for that, is it? Blog comment threads are where people have discussions, not write treatises. If you are that much of an academic, then you should know the difference.
Consider that comment an abstract, not an article. First of all, I am certainly more capable of interpreting my own experiences than you are. I can back up what I said with a hundred emails, and dozens of cases in which liberal collegues fell over themselves to give me their Chomsky and Zinn books, but refused to even consider reading anything from me in return.
And those are the more educated ones. Most don’t even bother with that. Here’s a little recent example. Not even a month ago, I sat in a faculty office with two Canadians who had just been told that their own troops were going to Libya. The conversation continued for twenty minutes while they debated whether such a horrid rumor could possibly be true. In the meantime, I looked up and found half a dozen news articles on exactly that subject. The next day, they were still talking about it.
I have many conversations in which, before talking to me, Liberals have never, ever, even once, heard an actual argument against the welfare state. I have listed to them have passionate opinions about radical Islam, but they have never no sense of the geographic distribution of Sunni and Shia, let alone have even heard of Sufism, Wahabism, or any other important distinction within Islam.
And most of all, they are usually interested only in sources, not ideas. If they can connect any news story in any way to Fox News, they dismiss it out of hand. Even if there are parallel stories in the New York Times.
And these are high school teachers of history and English.
So generalize all you want. You Liberals are very good at that. It’s getting down to specifics where you all fall down.
And if anyone wants to comment on my couple of minor errors, let me reiterate my original point: These are BLOG COMMENTS, which are one step above facebook chats when it comes to actual writing. For all of us, these are a few minutes to write a few words in the middle of a busy day. And for those of us who live and work deep in the heart of leftist fantasyland, this one of the few chances we ever get for conversation.
I belive you meant “seemingly”.
Are you being deliberately ironic? Or did you actually mean to say that all generalizations are contemptible except your own?
To my eye, this piece is a surprisingly well done review. Not surprisingly then, here and there, it draws out very many false or under-reaching attempts at use of logic, some of which should suffer more exposure to sunlight—but to take just one or two:
“I plan to use your posting and others on this page to demonstrate how not build an argument for my writing students.” presents several elements of illogic, full explication and correction of which would require some pages of carefully arranged conceptual constructs—a work which would much better, in the large blocks of time which in composition classes are dedicated to the work of assisting and even helping the pupil learn how to adjust his thinking to be able to use the tools which the logic of discussion provides.
And with that last thought in mind, in simply re-writing the thing in one of several correct ways, I may perhaps, be able to shorten things up enough to have made an appropriate fit for the PJM forum; and so: “In order to demonstrate to my composition class how to not construct an argument, I plan to use this, your post and others from this page.”—demonstrations are more correctly made “unto”, leaving considerations of “for benefit of” to the mind of the receiving party; then, the general rule being: as a painter first prepares his canvas with in the shades and hues which are to be seen furthest away, except to the needs of special purpose, the qualifying clauses give cast to the whole, they are accorded first emphasis, and are to be arranged in correct order.
“a perfect example of “over generalization.”: Because the closure which the period is intended to provide, is rather, to effect closure to the entire sentence—and not to the quoted item, only—it is correctly placed, after the closing quote mark.
Then, because the rules of logic in discussion provide that, intellect and sentience be assumed as resident in the other party, exceptions to general statements are required to be presumed as accepted with appropriate allowance for other related elements—else, for the immediate morass in qualifying intonations in spaghetti statements, would we find sharing of knowledge made ever so much more difficult.
That being so—while there may be an inapposite generalization, or one so broad as to have bridged dissimilar elements, or a stultifying peculiarity in, say, one speaker to use too many generalizations, and too often—as most usually heard, there is no such thing as an “over generalization”; and for a rule more lengthy to state—though, not now here and now to do so—logic requires that, “PJM readers and Huffington Post readers have one thing in common.” can be correctly stated with a conjunctive adverbial (at least) and the attached concept which is to be the very thrust of the conceptual construct: “PJM readers and Huffington Post readers have at least one thing in common: they are so busy pointing out the splinter in other people’s eyes that, they fail to notice the plank in their own.” —keeping faith with the KJV translators who, in their “beam”, correctly maintained scholarly sense of number, hence: “splinter” and “plank”; also, for natural language parsing on computer, the conjunctive “that” is not merely essential, rather, it is necessary that, it be retained in language.
Finally, I think that, upon the educational emphasis of an earlier day, now, USA children are being so little informed concerning use of language, is amazing, . . . and is cause to bow in a moment of prayerful concern, . . .
But this of Roger Simon, my gosh: “endless blather”, “the cozying up to”, “the jejune”, “playwrights identify as”, “a longer slog”, “a chrysalis bewildered and astonished”, “white heat”, “a full-throated attack”, “a polemical intention”, a “normal run of books”, “a Talmudic style”, “the great Hillel”, “Western bankruptcy—literally and spiritually”, “quasi-totalitarian elites”, what are those salads, a meal entire to itself—all in, say, 700 words.
Nice hit, Mr. Simon, . . .
LSD. Wonnaful, wonnaful.
@Kindalib: you can get indignant if you want, but this is basically true. Most of my friends are liberals (not kinda liberal, but really liberal), and they tend to either not read books, preferring the Nation or Huffington Post websites, or they read literature, preferring those novels (many of them excellent) that reinforce their world view. In my experience right-wingers are much more likely to read outside their comfort zone (excepting some varieties of fundamentalist Christians).
Note the recent (and loud) attempts by liberal commentators to lecture conservative Christians on the atheism of Ayn Rand (one reviewer wondered if tea party types realized they were having sex with the devil). Every conservative Christian I know who reads Rand is well-aware of her hostility to religion. They read her anyway. It’s not a big deal. But to liberals the idea of reading someone who has ideas contrary to your own seems insane; so they believe they’ve found some contradiction worth pointing out.
Besides, as one of my liberal friends told me: “When you’re on the correct side of things you don’t have to do a lot of research.”
I’ll chime in one more time here, only because this incident literally happened since the time this comment thread started…
In a conversation about China, I made a comment about John Locke and his views on the rights of revolution. Some of the Liberals in the room thought I was referring to the character from the TV show “Lost”. No joke.
On lots of small incidents like that do larger generalizations get built.
Liberals don’t read.
Leftist DO read, or at least the intellectually engaged among them do. Believe it or not, some leftists do something akin to actual thought. But like Scientologists and other such culties, the ideas that they think with and about are highly constrained and selectively chosen to reinforce their delusional world view.
They read things based on how the book or article makes them FEEL, and on how well it reassures them that their ideas are sound. Sadly there are “conservatives” who do the same thing.
But you are right that the vast majority of leftists do not read. They don’t live in the world of ideas but of attitudes and postures. They assume a particular mental or emotional posture about something and regurgitate some leftist talking points without ever having the slightest clue what they are talking about. When you challenge them with something their canned talking points cannot address, they’re either silenced or fall back calling you one or more names (racist, hater, etc, etc, etc).
Sadly Mamet’s book won’t reach either group. The first group will not allow its ideas (around which they have built their sense of self) to be challenged, and the second group won’t even understand what the book is about.
Those who will be reached are the ones who are actually conservatives and libertarians but just haven’t realized it yet. This is good because we need them.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
Knowing the huge amount of energy it requires to stop Republicans from fighting each other like grammar school children, why would anyone in their right mind want to waste time and effort trying to convert or mock 55 or 60 million liberals..?
Mamet speaks of how he was stunned by the clarity and reason of conservative writers like Thomas Sowell. It reminds me of another former leftist, Jung Chang, describing the same intellectual liberation when she gave up Mao’s mind-numbing propaganda and got hold of some writings of JFK. She’s now a leading historian of Mao and his time.
AzA, it is indeed hard to get liberals to read oppo stuff — if they did, they’d already be conservatives or libertarians. Most of them just have to be mugged by reality. Mamet must know this, but he says he needed to get the book off his chest.
David Mamet does not know it, but he has been an influence in my life and that of many of my friends, the age of a younger brother. He is about 7 or 8 years older than I am, his use of words, the manner in which his characters lob verbal hand grenades at each other…was a lesson in human interaction that we absorbed, for good…and sometimes carried in our back pockets like nunchucks.
I am not aware of any “celebrity” leftists who would fare well in a verbal spar with him. He has always had a fascination with con men and their manipulations. If you have not seen House of Games you have seen Joe Mantegna’s best work, of which there are many offerings.
Even when David was a “liberal”, he showed signs of critical thinking skills far beyond the “accept and regurgitate” variety. Like nearly everyone from my Chicagoland neighborhood, he learned as a child to take either side of an argument and deconstruct the opposing side.
His characters don’t “win” an argument…they barely survive it. In Mamet’s hands a “put down” takes on the meaning of what you do to an aging dog.
So, I am not the least bit surprised that he has blazed his own path away from the extreme and destructive leftism that has destroyed what was once a good and great and noble “classical liberalism”…itself a victim, virtually extinct in post-modern America. It has been swallowed whole by the mindless, vacuous, sanctimonious and unserious leftism of today.
NO serious “classic liberal” who ever thought about why they adopted the worldview that they had….morphed into today’s leftist. They ALL migrated to “anti-leftism”. They could do nothing else, if they wished to retain a conscience. David Horowitz, Roger Simon, Ron Radosh are the ones the readers of these pages would be most familiar.
They are the “older brother” generation. Ann Coulter can lance a leftist with a quick jab. And they will fight back. David Mamet….if you want a visual of what would happen to a leftist…watch the Pacquiao vs Margarito fight, with your hand on the slow motion replay button.
For anyone who believes that rampant, unchecked, mindless leftism is the greatest danger to this country, David Mamet writing a book on the subject would be the primer on how to organize your words in defense of this land of ours.
You usually have clearer sight, cfb. As the comments above clearly state, “liberals don’t read”, and neither do today’s mouth-breathing 3rd generation spawned by Roger’s and Mamet’s 60′s flash-mob tantrums (thanks, guys). Today’s ‘liberals’ are little acorn voters all, whether behind the girdle counter at Woolworths or stammering rigmarole in the faculty lounge.
The game is lost exactly as the 60′s American Bolshis said it would be: they own the ‘teachers’, the govt and the CEOs. Mamet is no David Horowitz, and he came at least one generation too late to the party.
So-called “liberals” (i.e., nihilists, bolsheviks, mensheviks and useful idiots) will only be converted, like the Russian-Chinese-Kampuchean kinds, after 70 years (three more generations) of holocaustal killing fields. Any of us standing around had better get the #### out of the way.
Early 20th Century agitators simmered up political slaughters that went on for 70 years, murdering over 120 million civilians worldwide. The 60s brats (Roger included) may have stewed up to a billion when it’s all done by the end of this century.
Pushing remorseful tracts of repentance onto their mouth-breathing, analphabetic great-grandchildren won’t stop the reaping of the crop they sowed. Once again, thanks guys.
pelaut, you may not be familiar with some of my earlier writings or comments.
I make a huge distinction between classic liberalism and today’s leftists. A “classic liberal” of yesteryear would be today’s center-right Republican. I have from time to time pulled up quotes from JFK that would have him skewered by the lapdog media of today.
I believe, pelaut, and have written often…that I don’t believe liberals exist today. They have been swallowed whole by leftists.
The people you describe who don’t read, won’t listen, wallow in hypocrisy and cannot be moved…are NOT liberals. They are leftists. Some knowing full well the destructive path they chart and some…mindless lemmings who still believe they are being “liberal” by blindly following a toxic brand of Marxism designed to destroy everything in its ugly path.
I once wrote a comment to Roger Kimball about this subject, right after Christopher Buckley fell into the hopey-changey abyss a couple of years ago. The difference between a classic “liberal” and a leftist was the subject matter.
EVERY classic liberal with a conscience and two firing synapses has abandoned the despicable leftism of today. I make a distinction between these two words (liberal and leftist) because I believe words matter. That is also why I will NEVER call the lapdog media “mainstream”. If that is the main stream, I don’t want to drink from it.
We need to keep vigilant in not adopting the words, phrases, lexicon of those who mean to destroy us. And, we need to shame “liberals” out of their mindless zombie-like march behind the leftist bastards who are trying to tear us apart.
You’re right, of course. But I date “liberal” to the Greek ideal as expressed in the waning Victorian age. The word “liberal” today was explicitly expropriated by the progressive leadership (I can get the quotes) as a sheepskin over a wolf. “Liberal” today is what they call themselves and what the media calls them. And they mean ‘nihilist progressive communist’.
While I understand your frustration, pelaut, I think that you’re perhaps a bit too fatalistic.
The US Left has been up to this for the past 100 years, and yet, they’re still only able to claim about 20% of the population in their ideological camp…and of that total, 70-80% are your garden variety “useful idiot” types, who have no real knowledge of the history or failings of Leftist ideology. I’d wager that only about 2-3% of Americans are true, dyed-in-the-wool neo-Marxist progressives. And while these people can certainly do a lot of damage, in the end, I don’t believe it will be a fatal amount because the majority of the American people will, I believe, wake up to the danger before it reaches the point of utter collapse.
An example: look at how the Left is desperately trying to scapegoat “the Rich” for the country’s problems. Wall Street, “Big Oil”, the evil insurance companies…but how much traction is it getting amongst the majority of Americans? Very little. Even their standard cry of “tax the rich!” – a cry that is being actively promoted by the Leftist-dominated news media – is beginning to ring hollow with the American people and is unable to move the needle much. Instead, the majority of Americans believe that GOVERNMENT needs to be reigned in, not big business.
Now, I know that those same majorities also say “but don’t touch Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare” but that’s to be expected as the majority of these people are simply unaware of the millstones these programs represent around the country’s fiscal neck. And it’s going to take a while for the severity of the problem to sink in with enough people that real changes will be possible…but mark my words…it will sink in. There is simply no avoiding it.
Now, does this mean that I think this process is going to be easy? Not by a long shot. The America of the past 25 years is gone. The norm for unemployment is going to be 7-8%…not 4%. People are going to be buying a lot fewer BMWs and SUVs…and alot more compact Fords and Hyundais. Mortgages will be harder to get. Credit cards will be harder to get.
But luckily, we Americans are actually a very wealthy people – most of us have more than enough material possession to last us through a lean decade…or two. Economic realities will force us to change our behaviors. We will go back to buying what we need, while what we want can be put off to another day. There will be fewer seniors moving into nursing home’s and more of their families moving into their homes, as this will ease the financial burdens on both (nursing care for the seniors, fewer living expenses and free daycare for the parents). All of these “adjustments” – and many more others – are actually good things, because they result in children being raised in homes where they are taught to value and respect money and family. In twenty short years, you could see some real changes occur in American culture.
As for worse case scenarios, with Marxists running wild, ushering in some new “People’s Revolution”, I don’t worry about that much here. Remember how welfare reform in the 90s was going to lead to rioting in the streets? What did we get instead? Alot of people quietly got off of their a$$es and went to look for jobs. Deep down inside, the societal leeches know that they’re leeches. They know that they have nothing to legimately gripe about. And they also know that if they push it too far, that this country is not France or Spain…and that there are ALOT more people here who would be willing to die for their children’s freedom and futures than who would be willing to die for wealth confiscation or Net Neutrality or gay marriage.
Your lips to God’s ears.
But all of history tells me the dog really is wagged by the tail, the fatter and lazier the dog, the easier for the smaller tails.
Pelaut wrote, “Pushing remorseful tracts of repentance onto their mouth-breathing, analphabetic great-grandchildren won’t stop the reaping of the crop they sowed.”
You have a far different view of the future than I do. There will be few liberals and many conservatives. Why? Because liberals believe to a larger extent than do conservatives that having children leaves far to big a carbon footprint. Just be patient! Wait a generation or two and conservatives will hold a majority of all positions outside of education. Then simply start your own school system or you can let your grandchildren do it for you.
“Like nearly everyone from my Chicagoland neighborhood, he learned as a child to take either side of an argument and deconstruct the opposing side.”
One of the things I’ve told my kids as they grew up, and my friends that are stuck in their predispositions…if you can’t argue from the ‘other side’ then how can you possibly understand the position enough to effectively counter it.
For my friends its more : how can you maintain that claim when you ignore the counters to it.
“Today’s voters…..behind the girdle counter at Woolworths”! You must be even older than I am. Those who we are hoping Mamet may reach don’t even know what a girdle is much less a Woolworth. And I think you meant corset.
Corset? Are you referring to those antiques, with the whale bone stays? If so, you need a way-back machine. Woodrow Wilson’s wife almost certainly wore one. But, then, corset accurately describes the restraints on a leftists mind.
Having lived in San Francisco for forty years now, the pattern I’ve seen is that lives on the left are driven by belief fueled by emotion; critical thinking becomes an unwelcome intruder when reality and its consequences (and oh, those distasteful, unintended consequences…) clash with cherished beliefs.
No matter how ruinous the financial and social effects of big government dependency politics become, the response is depressingly consistent: just pour more of other people’s money into the problem. Attempts to convince believers that money makers need incentives, not only to make, hire and invest, but to resist taking their making skills elsewhere, are met with puzzlement and often scorn, since “social justice” requires the selfish and greedy successful to strive for equality of outcome. Pointing out the inevitable fiscal mess a pyramid of dependency creates, with its expanding base of non-contributing dependents relying on a shrinking pool of providers, meets with similar incredulity and disdain.
So talk, and ask and discuss the why questions, with any and all willing to listen; for example, contrast job loss from the blue state exodus to job creation in Texas. Examine the debacle of socialist Europe, country by country. Most importantly, let critical thought and reality’s lessons be the guide; a winning message in a solid framework of credible, relevant evidence sells itself to the open minded.
And God bless him for it. But it’s becoming an ever more difficult undertaking, as the many commentators who’ve remarked on the “hardening of positions” in American political discourse have told us.
Probably the worst barrier to get over in a political outreach effort is the moral one: the notion that he who disagrees with you politically is therefore evil. After that, we still have the problem of “sunk intellectual capital:” the generally unexamined belief that one’s positions reflect an intellectual achievement. Unfortunately for our entertainment cadre, these convictions are almost universal among them.
To some extent, I was heartened to hear that David Mamet’s conversion from mindless liberalism to considered and thoughtful conservatism came about, in part, from conversations with his rabbi.
Heartened, because I’ve long known — since my conversion from mindless liberalism to considered and thoughtful conservatism 34 years ago — that religion plays a very important and instructive role in the full maturing of the human person.
As a practising Christian, mindful of and grateful for the Jewish root of my faith, I have been disheartened by the relegation of religion to the basement of our “culture.” Mindless liberalism has thrown religion in the trash, except for the religious beliefs of newly immigrated visible minorities — thus leaving our Western societies vulnerable to every new and twisted idea born from ignorance and an obsession with novelty and experimentation.
Leonard Cohen gets it in The Future:
… Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul …
I should mention, perhaps, that I’m talking about the Canadian situation, though the U.S. is not that far behind. Canadians are much less religious than Americans — in the sense of being comfortable talking about their faith, that is, the Judeo-Christian faith of their forefathers and mothers.
Whereas in the ’50s, 80% of Canadians went to church or synagogue on a regular basis, now 80% of Canadians never go to church or synagogue — and we can see the difference this makes to the civility of society which, today, is growing coarser by the minute.
Canadian Leonard Cohen is not only a poet without peer but a prophetic voice, as well.
He must be great fun at parties.
The ladies have always liked Cohen — especially the slow dances.
I am looking forward to movies and plays Mamet writes using his new-found insight. When a growing body of art incorporates conservative hermeneutics a renaissance will flower.
He already has just watch Glengary Glenross, if that isn’t the constrained vision on full display I don’t know what is.
Even before I knew who Sowell was, watching that movie in 92, I sensed it was about an imperfect world with imperfect people. His works have always focused more on the tragic nature of human interactions.
I always thought of GG as an anti-capitalist screed. It was based on “truths” that every liberl “knows” – that capitalism warps people morally, smothers their idealism, turns them into virtual slaves, makes them cruel, grinds them down, leaves them empty and without hope. It’s the view of a “creative” liberal who’s never worked in a company or met any actual “company men” but who’s read plenty of gonzo stories about them in The New Republic and Rolling Stone. I guess at some point he began noticing some of the things that liberalism does to people, too. I could be wrong…
Check out Spartan and/or Redbelt, both great.
I second the recommendation for “Redbelt.” Chiwetel Ejiofor is excellent, as is Max Martini. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1012804/
Great book review, Roger. Thank you. I look forward to reading the book.
For many of us who have “progressive” friends that structure their worldview in Modern Liberal dogma abd wonder how might it be possible to pull our deluded friends heads up from the cesspool of Liberal fantasies and into the real world, this book offers some hope. Reading the writings of recovering Leftists like Horowitz gives a great insight into the whole pathology of the process of Leftist self-delusion and narcissism as substitutes for tangible, real-world achievements. I’m hoping Mamets book will give greater insight into the basics of why and how people become seduced by the comforting, self-assured lies of Modern Liberalism in the first place.
I identify very closely with Mamet, Horowitz, Simon etc. I guess I’ve been on the same journey from brain dead leftist to … whatever I am now. I will buy this book.
I not only bought one for myself. That will be put in the pipeline of family and friends after I read it. Another copy was bought for my public library. My contribution to the education of America.
Mamet grew up.
I love the line about the old 60′s rallying cry, “all one need do is refrain from trusting anybody over thirty”. My political journey towards the right side started in the 90′s when all the Baby Boomers who had their first president (Clinton) started to lament my “Generation X/Slacker” generation and started to say — now that they were in charge — “never trust anyone under 30″.
Great blog! Can’t wait to read the book.
During my 32 years as a chalk-smeared drudge in a community college i found one, just one, liberal colleague who had read a book by a conservative. When I ran for Congress in Maine’s second district in 2008 I was interviewed by the editorial boards of all the daily newspapers. Took the opportunity to interrogate them. None of them has a clear idea of what neo-conservatism was, although their letters-to-editor columns were full of furious denunciations.
“Dialogues”, “National conversations” BAH! HUMBUG!
Mamet is obviously an honest man. Like David Horowitz he looked into his own soul and saw he had believed lies. He realized he was not his own man but rather a product of someone else’s ideas. Resenting having been brain washed he decided to discover what was true. He wanted to live in the real world, as it is, and work toward what it should be rather than toward an impossible socialist utopia.
Perhaps his book will reach a few of his deluded brethren but only a few. The Left IS the Left because it is evil. The Left was there in the Garden of Eden. The Left was there at Gethsemene. The Left was there at the formation of Planned Parenthood. The left desires one thing. Power. It will go to any length to attain and keep Power. There is nothing new under the sun.
Even Mamet is only coming part way out of the darkness. He’s peeking into the light and thinking he might like to live there. If one wishes to be truly free one must look to the Creator and come fully into the light. This is usually too painful for we who are born in darkness.
…but this is how a dead cat bounce in the realm of ideas looks like. Unfortunately, conservatism (like America and the West) is dying, if it isn’t already dead. It’s the momentum (or inertia) of the leftist leviathan that is killing it. And it’s death, all right. Just take a look at the occupant of the Oval Office: every time I look at this individual I see death, intellectual moral spiritual economic political social cultural death.
I wonder if Bill Maher has the balls to book Mamet on his show….
I notice that Mamet’s success as a playwright came while he was still a member of the Liberal fold. Had his conservative curiosity been unearthed during his formative years, he would have found himself passed over for even the least praise and acknowledgement. No amount of skill as a writer or philosopher would have overcome that mistake. For the elites, despite their pleadings, tolerance is something reserved for their own.
Lob this book, like an intellectual hand grenade, into the minds of your liberal friends. It may succeed in exploding a few of them out of their smug NYTimes-induced trance, and if so you’ll be doing your country and the world a huge favor.
Even some liberals eventually grow up, but it’s rare.
The reason is they carefully prepare the field to make it nearly impossible for a committed liberal to bump into reality.
Liberals essentially come in two flavors. At the top are a small percentage who rule the roost. The other 99% are liberals because they are convinced they have more to gain (the payoff) than to lose. Very very few are philosophically liberal. Almost all are paid off.
Notice that the top 1% are extremely well paid; politicians, university professors, professional agitators, trial lawyers. These people are granted incredible wealth and power by the liberal system, with no requirements other than to toe the marxist line and advocate for the cause. They are well paid-off.
For the rest, they are convinced (wrongly) that they will profit by the confiscation of the earnings of others. It’s that simple. They view themselves as well paid-off as well.
So don’t go thinking that there will be mass conversions, based on the rare conversion of an intellectual liberal. If .001% of them are liberals because they have thought it through, it would be shocking. And that’s the base that might be converted.
The much more common conversions are liberals who, through luck or hard work, begin to acquire some wealth, and suddenly realize they are the target rather than the oppressed.
You all are more intellectual purists than I am. I look at this way: the left considers itself the guardian of the culture, which is to say, what is cool. Cool is where the energy is. Andrew Clavan, Andrew Breitbart, Greg Gutfeld . . . now David Mamet, who is ginormously cool. I think there’s a chance of a tipping point, after which the left won’t want to be left behind. They might become mindlessly right as they are presently mindlessly left. Hmmm. I can live with that.
It may happen. Another approach is just to change the channel and stop giving the left an audience. They are only ‘in charge’ if we let them be. Similarly we can stop trying to reason with the left about the role of government. If we just stop paying (cut spending) we end the debate. It is our time and money.
The gatekeepers of cool were in the drama club in HS — rejected by the tougher kids. Tougher, action oriented kids more likely to be conservative. Dungeon-Dragon crowd more likely to be liberal. Tougher kid less likely to study the go into drama or entertainment.
Robert Mitchum, a true tough guy was embarrassed to be an actor. He viewd it as an effeminate profession, but liked the money.
…it’s fascinating that the two leading playwrights in the English language (the smart guys) — Tom Stoppard and David Mamet — identify as conservative/libertarians.
“The smart guys” may be all the description you need, and Tim Robbins, Sean Penn et al. and etc. are all the not-so-smart guys.
Maybe this huge divide comes down to quality of thought, fear & the impulse to control of the unintelligent mind.
It has been well said that really up-to-date liberals do not care what
people do, as long as it is compulsory.
~George Will
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in
freedom itself.
~Milton Friedman
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule
it.
~Mencken
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated;
but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end
for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be
more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell
of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be
“cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard
as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the
age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants,
imbeciles, and domestic animals.
~ C. S. Lewis
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to
feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not
interest them. Or they do not see it; or they justify it because they
are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
~T.S. Eliot
Mystical references to “society” and its programs to “help” may warm the
hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in
the hands of bureaucrats.
~Thomas Sowell
The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors–psychology, sociology, women’s studies–to prove that nothing is anybody’s fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you’d have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.
~P.J. O’Rourke
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion —
when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission
from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who
deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by
graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against
them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being
rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your
society is doomed.
~Ayn Rand
Nice selection of quotes. I think they get to the root of liberalism. The liberal wants to make the world a better place. In order to make the world a better place he needs to control people. In order to control people he needs political power. In order to get political power he’ll do anything – lie, cheat, or steal. And it’s all OK because he’s making the world a better place.
Billy Ayers’ rallying cry “the end justifies the means” writ large.
The (superior) liberal alone gets to decide on what constitutes the superior end. In service to that end, he gives himself license to indulge in any means, from lying and cheating to violence & slaughter.
In the latter case, not too far removed from the way violent Islamists justify their own carnage as doing Allah’s will.
“the end justifies the means”
Armegeddon justifies islam.
David, I will read this book. It sounds like Mamet has had a similar epiphany to my own in 1993 when I watched with horror at what I had helped to elect. But, I take a small amount of umbrage with your characterization of Ann Coulter, who has spent more than 30 years dealing with “mindless liberals” first hand. I’m sure these authors will have their own valuable place. But, Ann Coulter’s willingness to go into the jaws of the beast has proven to be a great expose on modern liberalism in its own right.
Oops, I meant to be addressing Roger. Sorry.
Annie is the master of zingers
I enjoy Ann Coulter’s zingers as much as anyone. But I find that I can abide her long form offerings more if I remember that she isn’t arguing, she isn’t debating, she isn’t explaining, so much as she’s performing.
I’m not opposing Coulter here, Jim. She’s fine and quite entertaining. What I was simply pointing out is that Mamet is attempting something more ambitious.
I agree; Coulter is a professional “againster” who targets and attacks based on well done but glib arguments that win debating points – she reveals nothing about herself – it’s a career, it’s money – she can’t go against the parade – in that sense she’s a paid assassin like Beck, Hannity or Limbaugh. However much you agree with them, don’t fool yourself that they’re philosophers. They go center and towards balance and there’s no career, no career, no money.
Mamet is attempting to express an overarching philosophy and expose his thoughts and seems to not care how it affects his career which in any event is not about specifics in regard to politics.
“The smart ones learn and the dumb ones don’t.” – my mom & ‘old school’ teacher
This review is more enthusiastic than the one in Reason. That reviewer described the book as mostly a skein of outraged assertions. I’m sure it’ll still be interesting to read, (especially if I agree with it), but I hope it isn’t just one long epiphany. You can’t have a discussion with an epiphany.
About 50 years ago the European intellectual Eric Vogelin described the liberal impulse as the emanitazation of the eschaton. That is why in this age of non-belief we will always have these secular believers in our presence with the urge to dominate the rest of us. It always struck me as strange that those who study or use the human condition as the basis for their craft would buy the totalitarian temptation to make us all perfect.
Perhaps experience has already shown Mamet that the actual numbers of the intellectual left which are capable of change is very small, because leftism is a condition of character, not understanding. But just as Mamet himself is the smallest possible number, it may be that it is a small number which are his true target. It was von Mises or Hayek who observed that all societies are eventually a reflection of their intellectuals. Our intellectuals were once, Madison, Adams, Hamilton, Ames, Jefferson, and a superior cast of friends, and even enemies. They were not infirm in their opinion or polite in their response to “visionary and utopian philosophers”.
Tom Stoppard wasn’t born in Communist Czechoslovakia. He was born in 1937 to Jewish parents on the eve of the Nazi invasion. His immediate family fled the day of the Nazi invasion. All his grandparents were murdered at Terezin and Auschwitz. He was mugged by reality at an early age and seems pretty immune to the pieties and platitudes of the left. Hopefully, one day he’ll utilize his analytic brilliance to dissect radical Islamic thought with the same thoroughness he has shown to radical Socialism.
Not quite, Donald. From Wikipedia:
Stoppard was born Tomáš Straussler, in Zlín, a “Shoe Town”, in the Moravia region of Czechoslovakia. He was the son of Martha Beckova and Eugen Straüssler, a doctor with the Bata shoe company. Both parents were Jewish, though neither practising.[4] Just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the town’s patron, Tomáš Baťa, helped re-post his Jewish employees, mostly physicians, to various branches of his firm all over the world.[5][6] On 15 March 1939, the day that the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, the Straussler family fled to Singapore, one of the places Bata had a company.
Roger,
A little confused:
Why would a “shoe company” have even single doctor in its employ, much less several?
“….his Jewish employees, mostly physicians”
Did (Shoe) Manufacturing companies of that place and time often have so much “company supplied” medical care available for their workers, that they employed MANY Doctors?
Beats me… Maybe there’s a movie in in it.:)
From all those communists who have become epiphanized, I’ll take David Horowitz. Much as I admire Roger Simon and Ron Radosh and Mamet and Stoppard and their writings, Horowitz is the one who has rolled up his sleeves, gone onto the campuses and stood in in open confrontation with arch-Socialists and radical muslims and has results to show for it, instead of “posting” and hoping that “will” and persistence may, eventually, bring change.
Talmudic dialog is enchanting, but as Rabbi Hillel said, the time is NOW. The barbarians are at the gates – literally.
Correction: The Barbarians are not only inside the gate – they are the Gate Keepers. They control our minds, and the minds of our children and grandchildren, through their domination of education, publishing and the dramatic arts — all sanctioned by the Supreme Court which has effectively outlawed most meaningful, practical resistance to liberal ideology.
Writers write, occasionally think with brains about what they write. Hollywood big mouth stars spill out what the script writers make them say. Like reading the teleprompter, they don’t need brains to regurgitate what other people make them say. So they have hollow echo chambers in lieu of brains. Oliver Stone, a director is the worst creature. He has a little grey matters sloshing in his echo chamber and believes himself have a brain.
Brooks William Kelley’s observation (#19) about the timing of David Mamet’s evolution reminds me of what John Stossel said about the praise he received for taking on corporations while at ABC ending when he focused a critical eye on government after he left for Fox.
Also, which I hope Mamet explores, is this myth that the left represents liberalism; if you live in any of America’s nanny cities you’ve sorted that one out long ago.
…does this represent an attempt by a (presumed) conservative for ‘conservatism’ to take ownership of ‘liberalism’ (at least liberal philosophy) too?
Rilly.
Always respected Mamet as a writer, and now for having the stones to “come out” as they say. Nice also to see some of my fellow Ace of Spades morons here too!
Watch Mamet’s “Spartan” — a taut, under-rated thriller which pays deep respect to American special forces.
Conservative mores aren’t actually dying out they’re still being cultivated and growing albeit slowly and painfully (as this article hints). However, they’re simply rejected by a growing mass of people throughout the World, because they’re tougher to argue for and understand their social utility, not as pleasing to the body and sole, and much harder to meticulously follow. The liberal way of living is a much easier path to trace. Which means, it fits much better weaker minds.
I don’t know Mahet’s work well enough to comment directly on his conversion to the American right. But I do have one minor observation of the little I see of US politics as a foreigner.
What you guys mean by liberals and conservatives is not what most European imagine those words to mean. Viewed in one way, there are no conservatives in the US to speak of. Those all went north of the border and into Tory Canada at the moment of independence.
Your Republic was born out of a Whiggish revolution, and has been riven with distrust of any establishment, liberal or otherwise, ever since.
It’s nicely demonstrated by whomever suggested Republicans should concentrate on keeping in a bunch rather than looking for unlikely converts from the liberal masses (though I suspect Mamet’s targets will be his literary and cultured friends within the elite, not the Dem base).
Again, keeping Americans in a bunch invokes the problem of your liberal nation: a phenomenon also known as ‘the herding of cats’. You caucus, and organise. But it is all very temporary, as though you could never commit to one guy for more than one term.
You strike me as a nation of radicals cursed and blessed never to be happy with just with the way things are.
Interesting observations. You may be right, considering how many mainstream political parties we went through to end up with Republicans and Democrats, and how many times the Republican and Democrat parties have more or less transformed into each other over the years.
Exactly right. Im wary of criticising directly but it does explain why both parties have outlier who when you look at the politics you imagine would be better off in the other party…
But that’s whole other territory…
I found something I was looking for in Wikipedia concerning the UK government:
“By convention if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held.”
Can you imagine us Americans having a convention like that? We’d be electing a new President every week.
Thank you so much for this article. I don’t even follow Mamet, but I pre-ordered the book the moment I learned of it.
It also gives me hope. I am constantly told that there is not point in talking to liberals about issues or trying to convert them.
I refuse to believe that about anyone, on any subject. Glad I am not alone!
I can still remember the first time I heard the phrase “property is theft.” I thought that the person saying it was crazy. Not crazy in the sense that they were saying something mildly irrational but still understandable, but that they were saying something so completely goofy as to be nonsensical. It was one of those “What the hell did you just say?” moments in life.
Property is not theft, but its antithesis. Property, the notion of rightful ownership, is a fundamental right. Like most fundamental rights, it serves to protect the weak from the predations of the strong. Without the notion of rightful ownership, theft by the evil and unjust would run rampant. Depriving someone of a material good or service would not be seen as immoral.
The right of private property is what make economic exchange possible. It requires that individuals produce goods and services that are of use and benefit to others in order to obtain the goods and services that they want and need.
Those who say that property is theft are uttering an Orwellian oxymoron. Orwell’s 1984 featured phrases such as “freedom and slavery” and “ignorance is strength.” Well the leftists who say that property is theft are doing the exact same thing. Pathetically, most of them don’t even realize it.
Mamet is overrated and greeting his conversion like Catholics greeting the conversion of John Henry Newman is ridiculous. The notion that he will covert others on the left is silly. No one listens to an ex drunk expounding on the evils of drink.
“No one listens to an ex drunk expounding on the evils of drink.”
Not true David. Alcoholics Anonymous is the most successful organization in dealing with the disease. And on the subject of Mamet, I wish him much success.
He has success, Mike. Lots of it with no help from you, thanks. Personally, I think it’s largely unwarranted.
As for AA, I have no argument. There are indeed people who will listen to a drunk go on about the evils of drink. Perhaps Mamet’s book will be a best-seller.
Off your meds, are we, Mr. Levavi? Angry much?
Not angry, Andy. Merely disgusted with converts to reality who don’t regret the damage they have done in the past. Mamet is just a noise so he’s hardly important. But the list includes Middle East diplomats who forced dangerous concessions from the Israelis and men like Goldstone who spread blood libels against the Jewish State.
I couldn’t care less about the evolution of Mamet’s politics.
My lovely girlfriend is a professed Liberal. She abhors my reading on Conservative topics and tries to insist I read “alternative views,” yet restricts herself entirely to reading things by those who share her world view – and nothing else. If I suggest she do likewise, I am given “the look.”
Our friends have no idea how we get along so well. But I will share with you a secret: she doesn’t like lefty socialist men, with their flexible views on monogamy and drifty attitudes toward gender roles. She wants doors opened, chairs pulled, dinners paid for, household items repaired without a three hour chanting session to invoke the gods, and to walk down the street with an ex-military man large enough to scare thugs. So she touts the great benefits of socialism publicly, but privately wants a warm-blooded right-wing caveman who wallows in capitalism, scoffs at Liberals, shoots, eats meat, can fix her car, her lawnmower, her plumbing, and yes, even her heart.
Recently I read stuff she suggested and, when I gently pointed out the logical flaws, she suddenly rescinded her request that I submit to some “re-education.”
“You wouldn’t be you anymore,” she said, “And I’ve decided I like you more than all this other stuff,” meaning politics. She also thanked me for never once attempting to convert her. I kept to myself the thought that her conversion was inevitable as she ages and sees the crazy stuff done to America by those she applauds. I just have to wait patiently. And keep the plumbing repaired.
That’s sweet — and so true! No wonder lib women go queer. Who wouldn’t if you were surrounded by wimpy lib guys?
I remember 1975 sitting with David, Bill, Steve, and Leo, and a few other friends doing what 60s people did/do. It was all so easy. We Knew. Lucky us. I moved on – focused on getting my engineering career going. What was I doing in David’s circle? Well it is a long story.
Then came Cambodia and the Vietnamese boat people. Communism had betrayed me. By 1980 I was on my way out of liberalism/communism and by 1988 I was voting for Ron Paul for President. Post 9/11 I fell out with the Libertarians. Which is why I’m now a libertarian Republican.
It is nice to see David come around. A little late to the show. But very nice.
Hi David. Welcome aboard.
“I just have to wait patiently.”
I wish I had your patience, I Miss Reagan (me too.). However, when I read that we’re piling four $billion-with-a-b more onto the mountain of accumulated debt we’ve burdened ourselves and our children with, my patience frays—quickly. Or maybe I’m just a crotchety senior who was mugged by reality early on.
A picture being worth many words, I suggest this:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/photos/galleries/steve-breen-gallery/18782/#galleries
Four billion PER DAY, that is.
David Mamet was educated at the same school my kids were educated at. 15 of the top 20 bundlers for Obama are at that school. The school is considered one of the top prep schools in the country. It sits in the top crony capitalist city in the country.
Teachers and the administration at the school deliberately run down conservative values-especially conservative economic values. Mamet came by his liberalism honestly and quite frankly, his transformation is more fascinating than a caterpillar to butterfly.
David Mamet, as writer, director and producer of plays/dramas detailing human desires and behaviours must know that timing is everything. So what took so long to write this thesis. NOW with THE GREAT DESTROYER Obama dubbed the “New Kennedy” culminating designs of the so-called “Democratic” Politial groups and their co-religionists in the USA – AND – worldwide – holding the reins of the most powerful office in the world?.
In which part/role, the lead actor Obama acts as royal prince. So familiar in African, Asian, Arab and other non-western “nations”. It is no secret that the founders of America, with blood and hopes, wrested themselves from royal courts. To develop the nation, honoured in the world, as example of the potential of COMMON people freed from duty to or control by an “elite”.
In their mockery and contempt for the founders and their progeny of America, these “New Age” destroyers of freedoms use the very words of those founders: “revolution” and words inscribed on the Great Seal of State: novum ordo seclorum (New Order of the Ages).
The drum and bugle corps (core!)the members of propaganda /educational and entertainment media for the past half century. With that wizard’s wand of TV which drives virtually all humans in public, beat the marches for these destroyers’ triumph: the final dismantling that last best hope of mankind. To re-assert traditional power classes of unaccountable Royalty, Court and Courtiers, as patterned in the reign of Kennedy the First and his “Camelot”.
The “People” – caring little for the liberty so dearly won by their forbears, and even current citizens – gather in massive crowds to cheer the destroyers and garland the executioners. Herded by the sheepdogs for this “Democratic” royal court the “stars” of Media, Hollywood and “intelligentsia”.
Repeating and echoing some comments from previous posts:
to be and live like a true Conservative is difficult;
to be and live like a liberal is easy.
The modern homo sapiens sapiensis always tends to take the path of least resistence, just like the animals, stupid darwinians argue, we are.
End of story.
David Mamet’s willingness to think for himself and to go against the herd is the mark of a true artist.
The other book that is useful in the conversion process is The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. It factually explains how free exchange makes us all better off and how rigid economies and self-sufficiency make us poorer. It’s also an engaging read.
Are there any other books – perhaps PJM can do a series on the 4-5 punchy books that can educate the brain washed?
Try an essay by Thomas Sowell called “The Real History of Slavery”. Its subject matter aside, it’ll show you an example of how to think rather than what to think.
Perception and how to properly apply it is an awful lot. Bloggers the world over all lay claim to it – few attain to it. Sowell does. Oddly enough it’s an ideology called reality to which one applies proportion, balance, perspective, context and fair play together with an over view and an understanding that human nature is much the same everywhere but competence in expressing it another thing entirely.
aclay1,
Amity Shlaes’ “The Forgotten Man”, for one
But, frankly, anything from anyone that delivers the message that an iceberg is dead ahead and, if we don’t steer clear, we—and our children—end up the next Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain (21% unemployment rate,) Italy…
And that’s just the dire economics; to which threats, to security and freedom, must be added. If they’re willing to go this far, direct them next to “The Speech” from Ronald Reagan at the 1964 Republican national convention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs
James May’s points are crucial for understanding causes and effects.
A definition of critical thinking I like is to
1. Find some evidence.
2. Evaluate it for credibility and relevance.
3. Use the result as a guide to decision making.
Also, stress that
1. Hearing is not listening.
2. Information is not knowledge.
3. Knowledge is not wisdom.
I remember very well reading the Village Voice piece and being struck that Mamet’s epiphanic moment came when he realized that liberals had human nature figured all wrong, that we all have the potential to be SOBs (I believe he called us “swine”) and that if all man’s institutions were bad, how could man be inherently good (and visa versa). I remember thinking, gee, Dave, what took you so long? How long were you planning on denying the implications of your own writing?
This, of course, is liberalism’s original sin and the one which renders everything after it moot. It’s what makes them think that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” could possibly work. It’s what makes them think man will toil just as long and hard for the benefit of others as he will to benefit himself and his. It makes them ignore that man’s primary directive, survival (of the individual, of the group, of the race) makes self-interest an imperative.
Welcome to the club, Mr. Mamet. You’re later to the party than you should have been, but we take ‘em any way and any time we can get ‘em.
To the claim that “liberalism is some form of altruism, and conservatism is self-interest” (in reality a very fuzzy as well as illogical proposition, since altruism does NOT trump individual utility maximizing behavior), let me counter with a different claim: liberalism is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. Conservatism is ‘order’ whereas liberalism is maximizing entropy, increasing information (in its mathematical definition) and increasing disorder. This proposition is consistent with some earlier supplied posts (as in # 47).
From professor Sowell; enjoy, and pass them on:
http://www.bookrags.com/quotes/Thomas_Sowell
I think it was after the second or third Mamet play I saw — probably a production of “Glengarry Glen Ross” at Houston’s Alley Theatre — I realized what a multi-level chess game Mamet plays.
There’s this blindingly superficial, nearly overpowering intellect that’s compressed, distilled, into his dialog. “Damn,” one thinks, “Of course people don’t actually talk this way, but they wish they could, and they guy who wrote this is one clever bugger.”
But there are more subtle layers beneath that which leave me thinking about his stuff for days after I can no longer hope to recall, much less repeat, any of that snappy dialog.
I’m a fan.
Meh, re-reading that, I ought to have written “obvious” instead of “superficial.” I meant by that, “surface-level,” without any negative connotation of being banal. “Un-subtle” would also have worked.
May I pursue a tangent, re: James May, #49, and Paul S., #51?
Some time ago Mr. Sowell made a comment in one of his articles lamenting college students being taught what to think, rather than how to think. In keeping with that theme I emailed him asking what a proper course outline would look like for “How to Think 101.” His answer was something to the effect of: “I have never been able to create a course on the spur of the moment, usually only after some months.” I admire Mr. Sowell, but in this case his answer was disappointing. I thought that if he brought it up himself he would have his own answer to that question, distilled to its essence, if for no other reason than to edify weisenheimers like me who might call him on it.
Paul S. gave it a shot. Would anyone else care to? This question, and the search for the correct answer, is fundamental to the “mugged leftist” who wants to change course, or to anyone else who desires to thrive in the real world, no?
Scott,
I’ll add that the unsubstantiated is opinion, not fact; always distinguish between the two. When in doubt, be skeptical and ask why. And never fall for “can you prove it isn’t?” If you make the statement, backing it up is your responsibility.
I believe that the very basic problem with the liberals and their ideology is that they simply don’t understand two basic things; economics and human nature.
The issue is the irrationality of Americans, not understanding the need for sound principles supported by evidence. See the new book, Rational Thinking, Government Policies, Science, and Living. Rational thinking starts with clearly stated principles, continues with logical deductions, and then examines empirical evidence to possibly modify the principles. I see this irrationality in my university math classes. One of the things I love about being a professor is the ability to help students become rational. Unfortunately, the majority of professors are irrational liberals, and I have to be quiet to keep my job!
What is with all this nonsense on this forum about what liberals, think, read, etc. If you want to see progress in society, the focus should not be on liberal this or conservative that, it should be about what works. This liberal vs. conservative business is getting old quickly — who cares.
In reply to SOME THOUGHTS, as a former teacher of ‘skulls full of mush’, I knew that in their awakening, they would like to recreate the wheel. The left academia would direct the young skulls to make sure the design was something so common as to be base, but the right academia, would ask that they think about what would be the best design for the application. Competition in defining what is best, is what separates the pleaser who appeals to the commonality, from the applier, who appeals to achievers. Stasis vs movement.