David Mamet - Why I Am No Longer A 'Brain-Dead Liberal' - Village Voice

13/5/2014
David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' | Village Voice
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David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a

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An election-season essay
By David Mam et Tuesday, Mar 11 2008
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John May nard Key nes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts
change, I change my opinion. What do y ou do, sir?"
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Weekend
My fav orite ex ample of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The V illage V oice.
Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New Y ork premiere of Waiting
for Godot.
Twentieth century 's greatest play . Without
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bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of
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garbage.
Decem ber 2 5 , 2 0 1 3
When he did get around to seeing it, he
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realized his mistake. He was no longer a

CHEAT SHEET
V oice columnist, howev er, so he bought a
Nov em ber 1 3 , 2 0 1 3
page in the paper and wrote a retraction,

praising the play as the masterpiece it is.
Ev ery play wright's dream.
Emo Is Back! May be.
Probably Not . No,
Tot ally .
Ja n u a r y 1 5 , 2 0 1 4
I once won one of Mary Ann Madden's

"Competitions" in New Y ork magazine. The
task was to name or create a "1 0" of any thing,
Lincoln's Log: Sky lar

Fein Probes Honest Abe's
Sexualit y
Decem ber 4 , 2 0 1 3
and mine was the World's Perfect Theatrical

Rev iew. It went like this: "I nev er understood
the theater until last night. Please forgiv e
ev ery thing I'v e ev er written. When y ou read
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College
Febr u a r y 1 3 , 2 0 1 4
this I'll be dead." That, of course, is the only

rev iew any body in the theater ev er wants to
get.
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My prize, in a stunning ex ample of irony , was
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a y ear's subscription to New Y ork, which rag
OC Weekly
William Allen
Whit e
Nat ional Public

Radio
(apart from Mary Ann's "Competition") I
Norman Mailer
Theat rical Play s
considered an open running sore on the body
Theat er
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of world literacy this due to the presence in
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New Times Broward-Palm Beach
its pages of John Simon, whose stunning

amalgam of superciliousness and sav agery ,
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http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-03-11/news/why-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal/full/
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ov er the y ears, was appreciated by that readership searching for an endorsement of
Riverfront Times
proactiv e mediocrity .
But I digress.
I wrote a play about politics (November, Barry more Theater, Broadway , some seats still
av ailable). And as part of the "writing process," as I believ e it's called, I started thinking
about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a
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Tokyo Whiskey and Peking
Duck Draw Crowds During the
Manhattan Cocktail Classic
buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of
conv enience under which it sailed.
But my play , it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say , about the polemic
Coco & The Vanity Vixens at the

Highline Ballroom
between persons of two opposing v iews. The argument in my play is between a president
who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopiansocialist speechwriter.
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NYC
The play , while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason
and faith, or perhaps between the conserv ativ e (or tragic) v iew and the liberal (or
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perfectionist) v iew. The conserv ativ e president in the piece holds that people are each out
to make a liv ing, and the best way for gov ernment to facilitate that is to stay out of the w ay,
as the inev itable abuses and failures of this sy stem (free-market economics) are less than
those of gov ernment interv ention.
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Carnival of Stupidity"
I took the liberal v iew for many decades, but I believ e I hav e changed my mind.
As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that gov ernment is corrupt, that
business is ex ploitativ e, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, ov er the y ears, become ingrained as increasingly
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Stealing $12.4 Million from Special Needs
Toddlers
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You're "Too Inhibited" to Fall in Love With
impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these
beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were
riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words
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beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant
summation, as alway s, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and
reading v arious organs of national opinion for y ears, wonder and rage contending for pride
of place. Further: I found I had beenrather charmingly , I thoughtreferring to my self for
y ears as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
This is, to me, the sy nthesis of this worldv iew with which I now found my self disenchanted:
that ev ery thing is alway s wrong.
But in my life, a brief rev iew rev ealed, ev ery thing was not alway s wrong, and neither was
nor is alway s wrong in the community in which I liv e, or in my country . Further, it was not
alway s wrong in prev ious communities in which I liv ed, and among the v arious and mobile
classes of which I was at v arious times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I hav e spent decades thinking that I thought ev ery thing was
alway s wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at
heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not
think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that v iew of human nature has both
prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 y ears. I think that people, in
circumstances of stress, can behav e like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit
subject, but the only subject, of drama.
I'd observ ed that lust, greed, env y , sloth, and their pals are giv ing the world a good run for
its money , but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day ; and that we
in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and priv ileged
circumstancesthat we are not and nev er hav e been the v illains that some of the world and
some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy ,
lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspiredin short, human) indiv iduals liv ing under a
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spectacularly effectiv e compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.
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For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behav e in a godlike manner, recognizes
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that, to the contrary , people are swine and will take any opportunity to subv ert any
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agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches
which are for most of us (I include my self) the only thing we remember from 1 2 y ears of
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schooling.
The Constitution, written by men with some ex perience of actual gov ernment, assumes that
the chief ex ecutiv e will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the
silv erware, and the judiciary will consider itself Oly mpian and do ev ery thing it can to much
improv e (destroy ) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them
against each other, in the attempt not to achiev e stasis, but rather to allow for the constant
corrections necessary to prev ent one branch from getting too much power for too long.
Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may env ision an Oly mpian perfection of perfect
beings in Washington doing the business of their employ ers, the people, but any of us who
has ev er been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut
through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.
I found not only that I didn't trust the current gov ernment (that, to me, was no surprise),
but that an impartial rev iew rev ealed that the faults of this presidentwhom I, a good
liberal, considered a monsterwere little different from those of a president whom I
rev ered.
Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into V ietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole
his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at
the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military serv ice; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a
book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia.
Oh.
And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"the hatred of which, I found, was
but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and serv ices they prov ide and without which
we could not liv e.
And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military " of my y outh, which, I saw,
was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their liv es to
protect the rest of us from a v ery hostile world. Is the military alway s right? No. Neither is
gov ernment, nor are the corporationsthey are just different signposts for the particular
amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if y ou will. Are these groups
infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and
neither are y ou or I. So, taking the tragic v iew, the question was not "Is ev ery thing perfect?"
but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which
form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.
Do I speak as a member of the "priv ileged class"? If y ou willbut classes in the United States
are mobile, not static, which is the Marx ist v iew. That is: Immigrants came and continue to
come here penniless and can (and do) become rich; the nerd makes a trillion dollars; the
single mother, penniless and ignorant of English, sends her two sons to college (my
grandmother). On the other hand, the rich and the children of the rich can go belly -up; the
hegemony of the railroads is appropriated by the airlines, that of the networks by the
Internet; and the indiv idual may and probably will change status more than once within his
lifetime.
What about the role of gov ernment? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and
background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tally ing up the ledger in those things
which affect me and in those things I observ e, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where
the interv ention of the gov ernment led to much bey ond sorrow.
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But if the gov ernment is not to interv ene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?
I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just
seem to. How do I know? From ex perience. I referred to my owntake away the director
from the staged play and what do y ou get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter
rehearsal period, and a better production.
The director, generally , does not cause strife, but his or her presence impels the actors to
direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority that is, to set aside the
original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics, the purpose of which
may be to gain status and influence outside the ostensible goal of the endeav or.
Strand unacquainted bus trav elers in the middle of the night, and what do y ou get? A lot of
bad drama, and a shake-and-bake May flower Compact. Each, instantly , adds what he or she
can to the solution. Why ? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contributeto throw into the
pot what gifts each has in order to achiev e the ov erall goal, as well as status in the newformed community . And so they work it out.
See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury sy stem, where, again, each brings
nothing into the room sav e his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of
deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community
a solution the community can liv e with.
Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is
ex clusiv ely liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conserv ativ e"), and he was
driv ing the flock wild. Why ? Because a) he nev er discussed politics; and b) he taught that
the quality of political discourse must be addressed firstthat Jewish law teaches that it is
incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.
And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so.
And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two v iews of America (politics, gov ernment,
corporations, the military ). One was of a state where ev ery thing was magically wrong and
must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the otherthe world in which I actually
functioned day to day was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably try ing to
max imize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the
marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway , ev en at the school-board meeting).
And I realized that the time had come for me to av ow my participation in that America in
which I chose to liv e, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching v alues, but a
marketplace.
"Aha," y ou will say , and y ou are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas
Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and
Shelby Steele, and a host of conserv ativ e writers, and found that I agreed with them: a freemarket understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my ex perience than that
idealistic v ision I called liberalism.
At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, v enal, cunning, and
v engeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkey s. And I gav e this fictional president a
speechwriter who, in his v iew, is a "brain-dead liberal," much like my earlier self; and in the
course of the play , they hav e to work it out. And they ev entually do come to a human
understanding of the political process. As I believ e I am try ing to do, and in which I believ e
I may be succeeding, and I will try to summarize it in the words of William Allen White.
White was for 40 y ears the editor of the Emporia Gazette in rural Kansas, and a prominent
and powerful political commentator. He was a great friend of Theodore Roosev elt and
wrote the best book I'v e ev er read about the presidency . It's called Masks in a Pageant, and
it profiles presidents from McKinley to Wilson, and I recommend it unreserv edly .
White was a pretty clear-headed man, and he'd seen human nature as few can. (As Twain
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wrote, y ou want to understand men, run a country paper.) White knew that people need
both to get ahead and to get along, and that they 're alway s working at one or the other, and
that gov ernment should most probably stay out of the way and let them get on with it. But,
he added, there is such a thing as liberalism, and it may be reduced to these saddest of
words: " . . . and y et . . . "
The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed
about the fools on the other sidebut, at the end of the day , they are the same folks we
meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.
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TrojanHorace
Mar 29, 2014
It is an awkward truth that totalitarianism can arrive under any kind of banner. It is
also an awkward truth that that there are few things more illiberal than a liberal with
the bit of truth between their teeth, but it doesn't follow therefore that Milton
Friedman makes more sense than say JK Galbraith. This won't do David. The rule of
law and the constitution are indeed powerful and vital for our political health and
wellbeing and when the rich and powerful stop subverting it for the benefit of their
bottom line and when the disparity between rich and poor stops widening, I'll be
more inclined to feel persuaded.
With David Mamet's royalties and his ability to feel like the king in his own little
fiefdom it's probably easier to believe that life is good, while also confusingly
subscribing to the Hobbsian view of nature... He has crawled out of the pit, so ergo
it's a fair result? Human nature, is more probably both a biological given and socially
conditioned... the one doesn't preclude the other. I suggest that Mr Mamet spends a
fortnight living in the same conditions and on the same income and with the same
5/15
13/5/2014

pressures as one of the "undeserving poor" his new friends on the right talk
patronizingly about - say, a single parent adjunct professor with two kids, no health
insurance, and a wage packet well below the poverty line, and see how long it takes
before he reconnects to the idea that social justice is more than just two lazy words
uttered by the brain dead. Social Justice does mean something David - but you can't
understand what it means while being fitted out by the same tailor that the Emperor
who wears invisible clothes, visits.
Like
catz
Reply
Feb 27, 2014
From one cartoonish perspective to another.

Like
MAO24
Reply
Jan 20, 2014
I will never watch his movies again the bourgeois pig.

He has lost his mind in his ole age.
No one with at thread of decency could support the capitalist war machine...
He will soon return to the fold in the same way the europeans will embrace
Communism again. It is inevitable.
In the mean time discredit this class traitor at every opportunity.
Like
dave_fullerton
Reply
Jan 4, 2014
Mr Mamet is still trying to figure it out. Perhaps he will now begin to move from the
right to the center. The problem is how to define the role of government clearly (this
is of course just philosophical - there is no clear path for reform anyway). People
seek control of the improvement of their lives. Liberals see government as the
means, conservatives the market. Both are correct. The market can work because
you can vote with your dollars or start your own business, but not, for example, in
the case of a monopoly. Government plays a good role in this case (well, not if
campaigns are financed by corporations). It's like a basketball game that is well
officiated. The players and spectators all benefit, but do get frustrated at times with
the officials. The officials are a small part of the game, yet have a lot of control. They
do try to stay out of the way, but if the ball hits them they are considered part of the
game and the ball is still in play. This analogy is pretty good for domestic politics in
an isolated society. But our society has competition in it, and is in competition with
other societies! This is where the role of government becomes fuzzy and where
government needs to be a lot more nimble by design (representative democracy is
very cludgy). In some cases, under certain circumstances, government can do
something more efficiently than the market (at least initially). This should be
reserved for cases where the market fails to provide that which is needed for
competing with other societies (what is necessary to compete is very hard to say,
healthcare and education are on the list). Unfortunately, we can't just follow a clear
policy of government does this, market does that, we have to watch out for other
societies using government to do something to get the upper hand on us (militarily or
economically - same thing really). Government should be small and powerful
(Democrats make it bigger, Republicans make it weaker), but unfortunately we are
neither good at creating or destroying it in a precise or timely manner. So far, our
positions of wealth and power in the world have enabled us to absorb our vast
inefficiencies in this area.
Like
alak0926
Reply
Dec 18, 2013
Yeah David, the market will solve everything. So says Milton Friedman, a man who
needed to be pimp slapped but never was.
Like
Einstein
Reply
Dec 17, 2013
Wow! David managed to freak you libs out! It's just an opinion piece and he doesn't
deserve the ad hominem attacks for expressing it. You're a fairly serious group.
Please lighten up and remember: Stop searching for perfection--you'll be much
happier. Cheers.
1
applemask83
Like
Reply
Dec 5, 2013
David Mamet: why I am now a retard

Like
Reply
6/15
13/5/2014

TheMouse
Mar 9, 2014
@applemask83 Goes to show you even liberals break their own rules by
using demeaning terms that are considered un-PC by the Left and calling
those who are mentally challenged "retards". Not even me, as a former
Liberal, would use that word. Then again, I've met plenty of socialist pigs
who used "fag" and "homo" in my company.
Like
ronco99
Reply
Dec 3, 2013
No, just a plain ole pinhead. Calling any American president a tyrant is so
disingenuous.
Like
ronco99
Reply
Dec 3, 2013
No, just a plain ole pinhead. What a putz!

Like
ajshinn
Reply
Nov 30, 2013
This is perhaps the most self-serving articles I've read in quite a while. The arrogance
is dripping from Mamet's words. It's cool that his worldview has changed over ye
years. But all he does is resort to the same kind of cheap name-calling,
misrepresentation and opinion-as-fact nonsense. No logic and no objective evidence
to support his newfound perspective. Just mindless drivel.
Like
occupyconsciousnessn
Reply
Jun 16, 2013
did this !@# wad actually compare bush 2 to jfk??? he has lost his mind.
Like
Antisthenes
Reply
Nov 13, 2013
@occupyconsciousnessn Amazing how open and logical the knee jerk

liberal is? No? George Orwell warned us of creatures like you.
Like
morrissey11
Reply
Jun 13, 2013
Mamet's Chicago School "wake-up" call certainly hasn't helped his creative work
any, which is perhaps instructive. Presumably he produced, what many regard as,
his most insightful and enduring work when he was a "brain-dead" liberal, while his
recent work is widely regarded as turgid drivel. The latter we now know was written
under the influence of all that Friedman and Sowell ("greatest contemporary
philosopher? are you kidding me?"), which is useful to know, and may explain a
good deal about an otherwise mystifying decline. Here we have yet more turgid drivel
in essay form, in the trademark terse (or is that--now finally revealed to be--banal?)
bursts, filled with the sort of whining and humorless "irritable bowel" selfrighteousness that so often seems to typify this species of conservatism (Chaney's
a classic example, Rumsfeld, definitely Romney and Ryan, the talk jocks Flush
Limpdick and Sean Insanity). You need to have a colonoscopy, David, you may have
ulcers. Hard to stomach (!) this sort of thing really, post-2008. Where exactly does
Mamet live these days? On which particular planet? Can't be close to downtown
Manhattan surely? Aside from the monstrous ethical failings of the "Lords of the
Free Market" with whom Mamet now aligns himself, those same crooks and
buffoons also proved themselves to be just about as "brain dead" as it is possible to
imagine (a little like the salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross--ooooh, who stole the
leads, boys? That's a really hard one!). Still obscenely rich of course (and saved by
a "free-market-interfering" government, no less--funny how they suddenly go all "non
laissez-faire" at such times, eh?), but breathtakingly stupid for all that. Driving the
whole world economy into the wall like men who got into Ivy League Business
Schools because of family connections but really weren't all that bright (no prizes for
getting that allusion)--how's that for certifiable "brain death"? And as if to confirm just
HOW brain dead these "realists" are, they cling on to the ridiculous notion that the
disease is the only cure for, well, the disease. Is it okay to conclude in the proper
Mamet-esque style? I will anyway, and risk running foul of the moderator: David,
you're starting to sound like a cock-sucking mothe-fucking idiot!
Like
alabastard
Reply
Aug 2, 2013
@morrissey11 I think the entire array of juvenile, scatological huffing and

puffing in your own unhinged rant pretty much establishes you as being
unworthy of bringing any reasonable criticism to Mamet's essay. The
fact that you've barely created a single cogent point in all of those words
confirms it.
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13/5/2014

1
wizardwerdna
Like
Reply
Dec 1, 2013
@alabastard I agree that his remarks were not written with

balanced advocacy, but to say he didn't make a cogent point
(without a single specific argument on your side, I will observe)
isn't true. Still you shouldn't dismiss them:
1) Mamet's most widely acclaimed works were written at the
outset of his career, and were indictments of the cynicism and
consequences of naked capitalism. For those, he earned his
Pulitzer. His more recent works, inspired in part by his new
conservative faith, have not been well-received.
2) Considering Sowell 'the greatest contemporary philosopher'
is a clear ideology smell -- there is no serious way this point
can be sustained. Sowell is not a serious philosopher, and
while he writes about philosophers' ideologies (the book on
Marx being a keen example), his writings are not even serious
philosophical criticism, let alone independent works of
philosophy. Sowell is a brilliant, well-educated and articulate
man, a widely acclaimed columnist and economist. But he is
at best a wannabe as a philoospher.
3) The use of the phrase "brain dead" is unfortunate, and not
an adequate substitute for non-argument whether by Mamet or
the OP. I believe the OP was trying to make that point.
Like
alak0926
Reply
Dec 18, 2013
Well said. I wont try to top it.

Like
Chrysippus
Reply
Jun 13, 2013
So Mr Mamet is now an economist, and can judge who is 'the greatest

contemporary philosopher' to boot, although said philosopher is more of an
economist than a philosopher, which I guess makes it easier. Maybe he should
devote more of his energies to his plays, seeing as they haven't exactly been wildly
successful of late.
He might also tell us where he has found those liberals who endorse the slogan
'Business Bad, Government Good', and who believe human beings are all basically
good at heart. Except for President Assad and his henchmen, plus Pol Pot and the
Khmer Rouge, obviously. And the Nazis. And the Fascists. And Lenin, Stalin and
Beria, and a whole bunch of Communists. And King Leopold's administrators in
Africa. Oh, and then there were those guys in the Inquisition, whom no-one expects,
admittedly. Some of the Roman Emperors too. In fact, there's quite a long list of
Really Not Very Nice People, and we've only just got started.
But of course liberals don't read Thomas Sowell, so they have these crazy ideas
that, just as one branch of government should not be given all the political power, so
government needs to let businesses do their thing, but, given that the sole purpose
of businesses is to make money, they need to be regulated, to some extent, by all
three branches of government, because otherwiseand this may come as a shock
to Mr Mametthey will, like Grnenthal, Enron, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros., the
BCCI, or Koch Enterprises, not come to a nice negotiated arrangement with us,
though they might do so with each other, producing, not a compromise, but a cabal.
No: they will capture government regulatory bodies and (as Mr Mamet might put it)
exploit the fck out of the rest of us.
3
Like
blowmelibs
Reply
Jan 27, 2013
Seems like Mr Mamet has lived long enough to start seeing some truth. Good to
hear and good to read about this conversion from fantasy to reality. I wish more on
the left would stop for a moment and examine their belief systems as he has.
Moreover, I would like to see some on the left pick up a book by Sowell, Friedman,
or Steele and see how the other half lives and breathes. For them it may prove to be
a breath of fresh air.
3
Like
leslieann
Reply
Dec 6, 2012
This editorial was incredibly ponderous. I wonder what a free market playwright reads
into the fact that his latest play, The Anarchist, closed only one day after the official
opening. Your time is past, David. Accept it.
1
Antisthenes
Like
Reply
Nov 13, 2013
8/15
13/5/2014

@leslieann I guess Mamet will get the last laugh, he's as popular as
ever. You best get your hand out for your government cheque!
Like
wizardwerdna
Reply
Dec 1, 2013
@leslieann Antisthenes, you seem to be making it up as you go along.

His popularity waned after the late-90s. His Pulitzer was awarded for his
works in the 80s, which he rode to get work until the late 20th century.
His only 21st century work of note, Anarchist almost closed out of town,
but absolutely came down for good in its first week.
No doubt his early work was pimp, and his associations with his first wife,
Lindsay Crouse, William Macy and Joe Mantegna led to some amazing
synergies. His unique approach to dialogue inspired many modern
screenwriters and playwrights. That was then. No doubt he wrote a bit in
this century, but nothing approaching the level of critical appraisal of his
earlier works. Indeed, his most popular writing of recent note was the
2011 screed announcing the history of his early 21st century discovery of
conservatism.
Unless you mean that his earlier classic works, like Glen, remain popular,
there is no support for your proposition that HE is popular as ever.
Can you provide any evidence to the contrary?
1
leavenart
Like
Reply
Jan 13, 2014
@leslieann If a failed attempt means so much to you, who do you listen

too? Look up the list of great playwrights and count their failures,.......if
you can count that high.
Like
workmanbackup
Reply
Nov 19, 2012
His name escapes me, but I recall hearing a liberal publicly say that on one thing he
had to admit, and that is from his observations, "Conservatives have a better
understanding of human behavior". Coming to that conclusion makes me think that
he too, may be at the beginning of his journey to becoming more of a conservative.
The deeper you think about it and the more you observe mankind the more you
understand how much of liberal philosophy undermines the very hard wired
subconscious essence of who and what we are. Humans don't only need to be fed
and kept warm. We have a certain pecking order that we establish subconsciously
with each other just like other animals do. We need purpose in our lives and we have
through tens of thousands of years developed transactional skills between us. We
instinctively have give and take attitude and each of us has something we can take
away or offer to the other that usually keeps things in balance. We al have egos, and
we all have roles to play.
Related to all of this, while watching Book TV this morning, a very liberal author was
plugging her new book titled "The End of Men: And the Rise of Women". I thought
about how different I interpret the same information. Much of what she discusses is
true, but she can't see how big a role our government now has in our lives and the
impact this has. The government has not only become the elephant in the room in
every household in America, but in truth it's now the Alpha Male in every home. It
has separated us all into groups and it, not the husband and father is the one who
has to be negotiated with. I first saw this happening when the state got more and
more involved in separation and divorces. There was no longer the balance of power
that keeps both parties reasonable and sane with each other. This argument goes
on and on, and and the consequences manifest themselves in many ways to each
and every group we are divided into. None of them service our needs as free
individuals with hopes and dreams and aspirations nor our need to work and love and
be loved and simply do our job as a free human being.
ronbr2
Like
Reply
Nov 16, 2012
If you're not a liberal at twenty you don't have a heart . If you're not a conservative by
40 you don't have a brain..........Churchil.
3
TrojanHorace
Like
Reply
Mar 29, 2014
@ronbr2 two Ls in Churchill... who was a reactionary at twenty and a

closet liberal at 60
9/15
13/5/2014

Like
clive.younger
Reply
Nov 8, 2012
If Mr. Mamet at one time truly believed that everything is always wrong then indeed
he truly deserved the self-imposed title of brain dead liberal. He goes on to
illustrate that Washington politicians who are perfect beings willing to work tirelessly
and perfectly for the common good are an abstraction (which of course, such beings
are) without admitting that the Constitutional provisions for checks and balances to
promote stasis dont amount to much more than a historical abstraction when taken
from the modern perspective. His viewpoint is a gross over-simplification, and as
abstract to the modern reality of politics as an airplane made out of donut holes; so
simplistic in fact that I find it difficult to locate a single opportunity to acknowledge
any of his claims. He even throws in the term Marxist as if that term has any sort
of functional value to anyone except for some babble-mouthed, McCarthyist pundit
looking to use emotionally laden catchphrases to scare up some ratings. Marxist
is as anachronistic a term as Whig; it has absolutely zero bearing on modern
policy, and as soon as someone utters the word, I have to wonder what they are up
to. Static vs. mobile class systems? In stating that most Americans probably will
change status more than once within [their] lifetime Mamet is dead wrong. The
reality is that Americans think of themselves as far more mobile than they factually
are. Research shows that most people start life in a specific income bracket and
then stay there, the single biggest determinant of ones class identity as an adult
being his fathers occupation and income, not their education level or job. This isnt
to connotatively suggest that everything is always wrongthe connotation here is
simply that relevant and complex social factors are at play and it is worthwhile to
examine them in order to find solutions that fit the complexity of the problem. The
solutions do not always call upon ever more zealous government interventions any
more than they always call upon ever freer markets, and a real solution likely lies
somewhere cooperatively in between the two. Mamet is hard-pressed to see an
instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow? Do
the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution mean anything to him?
The Social Security Act? The intervention of US military in fascist Italy and
Germany (and the subsequent massive government trade deficits that bore us out of
the Great Depression)? To hear Mr. Mamet make such base generalizations is truly
disappointing to me since I have such a great deal of respect for him as an
intellectual and consider his social commentary to be typically peerless.
Unfortunately, in this instance, Mamet gives himself exactly enough rope to hang
himself withmarking himself as out of touch in the processbut what is even more
egregious and counter-intuitive given his history is that he isnt even slightly
sophisticated, original, or deeply critical in his approach to being out of touch, which
is why I label him a brain dead conservative. All this Paul on the road to
Damascus, scales falling away from the eyes, sudden conversion story leaves me
with is the impression that Mamet is politically nave and should stick to what he
knows best; crafting socially relevant stage productions with snappy dialogue
which apparently would sell more tickets if it werent for that pesky director fouling
everything up
leavenart
Like
Reply
Jan 13, 2014
@clive.younger If you needed to impress, you could have used fewer

words, but people of liberal bent need many words to allow for the nuance
when challenged with actual events or facts.
This was simply about a man who sees things more practically as he
ages. You seem either young or attached to your need to seem relevant.
All liberals experience this, and some come to see how elitist is really is.
Like
MysticMan
Reply
Nov 7, 2012
I am also late to the conversation which I found mentioned in one of the online
conservative magazines. I was looking for an enlightened reaction to Obama's victory
and not the "God sucks" response that babbled out of Glenn Beck's blazing mouth
or other similar belches. However, after reading Mamet's epiphany, I realized I just
stumbled upon another simplistic, historical moron. Over-simplification and blatant
generalizations make me wonder, about the depth of his transformation. Milton
Friedman!!??? Paul Johnson? Mamet must be hanging with too many American
buffaloes and growing fat with lucre. You don't have to be a liberal to realize Mamet
is looking through the large end of the telescope.
4
jguild3
Like
Reply
Nov 8, 2012
@MysticMan If you are really looking for enlightenment, then you would
do well to re-read or at least review and understand all of the "great" or
notable economists from Adam Smith to Marx, Keynes, Hayak, and yes,
Friedman. There are others as well, and they have engaged in an ongoing
dialogue, each building on the works that their predecessors left behind.
Dismissing Friedman without logic or explanation makes you look as
foolish as Phil Donohue did when he thought he had trapped Friedman in
a logic corner, and then Friedman deftly sidestepped the trap and turned
10/15
13/5/2014

the trap on Donohue -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=76frHHpoNFs
In fact, find a youtube clip of Friedman that you can logically or factually
disprove, if you can; I've watched over 20 clips and have yet to find one
that I have a serious problem with.
YouTube
leavenart
Like
Reply
Jan 13, 2014
@MysticMan Oh, yes you do. ("have to be a liberal) But like all liberals
you have this need to think every one actually agrees with you. We don't.
Like
miltonb1
Reply
Nov 5, 2012
1. This is what happens to many young liberals as they grow older and become
wealthy.
2. I don't know many liberals who believe everything is wrong.
3. Most people do not have the opportunity to experience more then one class in a
life time.
4. This article is a severe case of projection as generalization for a whole society.

6
mmsands
Like
Reply
Nov 7, 2012
@miltonb1 This is what happens when young liberals try to join a

conversation beyond their years and experience.
Incidentally, I'm not wealthy and yet feel exactly the same way Mr.
Mamet does. As for having the opportunity to experience more than one
class in a lifetime: in this country you have the option of making your own
opportunities -- or at least, you did up until now.
When you're as good a writer and thinker as Mr. Mamet, try again.
miltonb1
Like
Reply
Nov 9, 2012
@mmsands @miltonb1
If I understand your reply to my comment you are under the
impression that I am a young liberal. Your reply is exactly the
projection I'm talking about. Hoping to not reveal too much of
my identity I will give you some idea as to how off base your
assumptions are. I am 64 years old and the son of immigrants
who came here in 1947 penniless. I have spent my entire adult
life in the corporate world, most of it as a highly paid senior
executive. As far as being a good writer is concerned, I am a
published writer who has won a few awards but gave up writing
many, many years ago. I certainly did not get close to the
11/15
13/5/2014

success of Mamet. I never tried. But I'm sure we can agree
that today's successful artist could very well be forgotten
tomorrow. So if you are going to comment at least cut out the
assumptions and insults.
6
Like
michaeljsouth
Reply
Nov 7, 2012
@miltonb1 you know your number 3 item there? That kind of

emo/tragic sounding lament about something high-falutin'ly called "lack of
class mobility" or whatever? I would bet that THAT is precisely what
Mamet was referring to in your item 2, how there's always some systemic
problem that's forcing people into the status quo.
Actually your 1 is probably also an example. This tragic thing where

people start out young and liberal and then they get old and wealthy.
This is Something Wrong. and then you follow it up with your number
three how it's bad that that doesn't happen.
Everything is wrong. See?

1
balzarfriesen
Like
Reply
Jan 31, 2013
@michaeljsouth @miltonb1 another confused southoner

won't surprise many. Class, as in bucks and politics be two
different things, Bubba.
Like
bflake
Reply
Nov 10, 2012
@miltonb1 RE: 3:) and under socialism no people will have any oportunity
to experience more than one class.
2
miltonb1
Like
Reply
Nov 12, 2012
@bflake You're right. So let's make sure that the middle

class starts to grow again and people in poverty are given a
better opportunity to rise out of poverty.
3
Like
michaeljsouth
Reply
Nov 12, 2012
@miltonb1 @bflake Really, it would be just as good a title

to say "cold hearted liberal" as it is to have "brain-dead liberal"
[I realize, though, that the context in the article is a phrase
Mamet jokingly applied to himself in the first place, and I don't
know at all whether he came to the same conclusion I'm
pointing out here]. My main objection to what liberals advocate
politically is the profound and long lasting damage it does to
the people they think they are trying to help.
2
w96ladypilot
Like
Reply
Feb 6, 2013
people in poverty will never rise out of poverty on the backs of

the taxpayers, no matter how much they are taxed.
2
jmacdougall
Like
Reply
May 10, 2013
@w96ladypilot People who rise out of poverty become

taxpayers. It's called investing in the nation.
2
nanunanu
Like
Reply
Jun 8, 2013
@w96ladypilot A lot of the economic data indicates that the

best way to help people out of poverty is to raise taxes on the
rich... not for the sake of adding that money to government
coffers, but because if a rich person has a choice between
paying a sum of taxes to the government or using it to grow his
business in a manner that functions as a tax write-off, he will
generally grow his business, and that will create jobs that can
12/15
13/5/2014

put people in poverty to work.
Like
workmanbackup
Reply
Nov 20, 2012
@miltonb1 I am 65 years old, and while I don't know of and studies to

confirm this or prove otherwise, from what I've seen I'd have to say it has
always been common in America to experience more than one class in
one's lifetime. I will agree with you this may be far less common now and
in America's future. It's very difficult to leave the plantation.
1
g_love
Like
Reply
Nov 4, 2012
Great article, David. I made a similar journey, but it focused more on liberty vs.
tyranny as I studied Constitutional Law in law school. I originally felt the government
could help those who needed help and I believed capitalism was inherently immoral.
I still hold those opinions (ideologically) but you can't truly analyze the situation
without thinking about freedom or liberty. If we support the government getting more
involved in our lives then we accept that the government is going to take more of our
money and, more importantly, our freedom. If the government weren't corruptible then
I would be okay with that, but it is not. Risking our freedom is not worth any
government program. Capitalism, on the other hand, leaves people behind regardless of the reason - some people just can't or won't compete at a basic level.
That is sad and to support a system that "allows" that seems wrong. But, after life,
liberty is our greatest right and Capitalism - with its problems - allows the most
liberty of any system of government or economics. So, while I am still not a huge fan
of Capitalism, I support it as the most appropriate and beneficial system available by
fallible men and women.
1
michaeljsouth
Like
Reply
Nov 4, 2012
@g_love That's a very thoughtful analysis. In my opinion, capitalism-real, free-market capitalism, not the crony capitalism that the robber
barons were participating in with their sweetheart government deals, etc-is the best system we are going to be abel to come up with given that we
have fallible human beings. The *best* system, in my opinion, might be
described as voluntary communism, where people of their own free will
have agreed to truly give to the best of their ability and only receive
according to their needs. You need virtuous people for this to work.
The benefit that capitalism provides is that if a person is not virtuous, they
still have a motivation to make the best product they can--perform to the
best of their ability, and be productive--simply to enjoy the benefits of the
profits that can be made from that.
Similarly, customers can be entirely selfish--refuse to pay any more than

they absolutely have to for something, mercilessly switch to a competitor
if they offer something better at a lower price--and it encourages virtuous
behavior on the other side, offering customers more for less, etc.
There is, of course, the question of what happens to people who don't
have a marketable skill, etc. The only answer for that (besides the fact
that the market is going to be the most efficient way of providing
_something_ for people to do, so there might be, under a complete free
market, a lot more opportunity than we see now where we take these
people out of the equations by giving them alternate streams of support),
in the end, is compassion. No system is going to work well if people are,
generally, bad.
You have to have at least partly good people, or at least part of your
people have to be good, or you won't have a good system. There is no
way around it. The beauty of capitalism is that it _can_ work without
completely virtuous people. That makes it an incredible system, one to
be celebrated.
But as human beings we should realize that we have the capability of
being more than animals, and not just taking the shortest path to
pleasure every time it is presented. We should choose this, because, in
the end:
There is no virtuous way to force people to be virtuous.
Again, thanks, g_love, for your thoughtful exploration of this idea.
13/15
13/5/2014

1
clive.younger
Like
Reply
Nov 8, 2012
@michaeljsouth @g_love Yes, capitalism motivates people

to make the best product they can so that they can enjoy
profits--just ask the guys at JP Morgan who put together the
Timberwolf package...capitalism, like government, isn't the
problem, the problem is capitalists.
michaeljsouth
Like
Reply
Nov 8, 2012
@clive.younger @g_love Ok clive if you're trolling, you got

me, but you do know that JP Morgan is in a complete tentacle
intertwine fest with the Federal Reserve don't you?
Government most definitely *is* the problem. Where do you
think they get that kind of money to play around with?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/11396jamie-dimon-jp-morgan-chase-the-fed-billions-trillions-forinsiders
1
leavenart
Like
Reply
Jan 13, 2014
@clive.younger@michaeljsouth@g_love Clive, you just

can't accept that something is both the best thing that ever
happened to civilization, and the worse thing that ever
happened. But it is truth. We are imperfect creatures and the
Founders, guided by the Almighty came up with a system that
could unite and turn a small nation of desperate people into the
greatest nation the world has known.
Just shows you that education doesn't work on some people.
If you want Heaven, you have to believe. No amount of
tinkering, or changing the meaning of words will do. The
meaning of is, is what it is.
Like
jguild3
Reply
Nov 8, 2012
@g_love Capitalism isn't immoral, it;'s amoral. That's why John Adams
said, "we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending
with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice,
ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of
our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was
made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other. " The founders understood that we must have a
moral guide separate from the Constitution and the laws created under it,
if our citizens were to be truly free. And that is why they prevented the
government from being able to establish an official religion, so that the
choice of moral guide would also be free and not compulsory.
2
michaeljsouth
Like
Reply
Oct 19, 2012
Hi David,
I know I'm late to the party, but someone just tweeted a link to this article. I read it,
and I wanted to (massively belatedly) welcome you to the dark side :):.
One way I've thought about the overall issues you are raising here is that if most
people mostly behave decently, there is no need for mass control. If most people
are mostly bad, there is need for mass control, but how can you trust them to elect
good "controllers"?
There is a guy doing some videos introducing the idea of trusting humanity to work it
out rather than trying to delegate moral decisions to an external entity. I think his
work is some of the most important political commentary being done today, because
it's so accessible and makes the points so profoundly.
If you search google or youtube for "George Ought To Help" and "Edgar The
Exploiter" you will see them.
14/15
13/5/2014

Anyway--just wanted to say hi, express my support, and mention those videos.
(Another great primer is "Philosophy of Liberty", also on youtube.)
I hope you'll be writing more on this topic, and that I get a chance to see your play.
Like
Reply
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David Mamet - Why I Am No Longer A 'Brain-Dead Liberal' - Village Voice

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Mar 29, 2014

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' | Village Voice

Feb 27, 2014

From one cartoonish perspective to another.

Jan 20, 2014

I will never watch his movies again the bourgeois pig.

Dec 18, 2013

Dec 17, 2013

David Mamet: why I am now a retard

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' | Village Voice

No, just a plain ole pinhead. What a putz!

Nov 30, 2013