David Mamet hangs a right

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

from the Village Voice:

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'
An election-season essay
by David Mamet
March 11th, 2008 12:00 AM

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"

My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice.

Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot.

Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage.

When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the paper and wrote a retraction, praising the play as the masterpiece it is.

Every playwright's dream.

I once won one of Mary Ann Madden's "Competitions" in New York magazine. The task was to name or create a "10" of anything, and mine was the World's Perfect Theatrical Review. It went like this: "I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I've ever written. When you read this I'll be dead." That, of course, is the only review anybody in the theater ever wants to get.

My prize, in a stunning example of irony, was a year's subscription to New York, which rag (apart from Mary Ann's "Competition") I considered an open running sore on the body of world literacy—this due to the presence in its pages of John Simon, whose stunning amalgam of superciliousness and savagery, over the years, was appreciated by that readership searching for an endorsement of proactive mediocrity.

But I digress.

I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the "writing process," as I believe it's called, I started thinking about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of convenience under which it sailed.

But my play, it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views. The argument in my play is between a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopian-socialist speechwriter.

The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. 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 beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always 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 view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving 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 privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains 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, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any 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 myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever 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 government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. 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 service; 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 services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything 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 "privileged class"? If you will—but classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. 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 individual may and probably will change status more than once within his lifetime.

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

But if the government is not to intervene, 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 experience. I referred to my own—take away the director from the staged play and what do you 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 endeavor.

Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute—to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.

See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save 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 live with.

Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first—that 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 views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.

"Aha," you will say, and you 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 conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.

At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a "brain-dead liberal," much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out. And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process. As I believe I am trying to do, and in which I believe I may be succeeding, and I will try to summarize it in the words of William Allen White.

White was for 40 years the editor of the Emporia Gazette in rural Kansas, and a prominent and powerful political commentator. He was a great friend of Theodore Roosevelt and wrote the best book I've ever read about the presidency. It's called Masks in a Pageant, and it profiles presidents from McKinley to Wilson, and I recommend it unreservedly.

White was a pretty clear-headed man, and he'd seen human nature as few can. (As Twain wrote, you 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 always working at one or the other, and that government 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 yet . . . "

The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.

[Brian Olewnick]

Yeah, Wozniak posted that on rollie's thread the other day; got no response, iirc. Thought it was an interesting piece aside from the baffling and near argument-killing beatification of Sowell (maybe he was thinking of Sowell's earlier, pre-pundit career, but still it's an absurd reach). I imagine it hasn't gone over well with his fans, but I was impressed by his honesty in confronting issues that challenged long-held premises. Be nice if that happened more often on both sides of the divide.

[Rob C]

I read this last week.

As an essayist, Mamet makes a pretty good playwright. I can't believe how badly written this piece is.

[Derek Taylor]

[groover]

Originally Posted by Rob C

As an essayist, Mamet makes a pretty good playwright. I can't believe how badly written this piece is.

It may appear awkward, but it's possible he's simply doing an effective job of communicating awkward feelings in an honest way. Do you feel that he was communicating ineffectively, and you're not sure what he's really trying to say after reading it?

It's also rare that anyone praises a well-written piece that they completely disagree with. After all, he doesn't say that he no longer considers himself a liberal, just not a brain-dead one.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

I found it very unusual, provoking and misguided. I was struck by his attempt to link political ideology with a cluster of personality features that seem to me to be relatively independent of political implications.

[Brian Olewnick]

I think Miller always had a strong conservative streak and, sensing the market, just went whole hog and cornered the right-wing, bad boy niche. But until Mamet starts appearing with oafs like Hannity (which, who knows, may happen), I'd be hesitant to put him in the same category.

[Derek Taylor]

I hear you, Brian, probably too early to tell. But I’d describe Miller’s streak back in the day as cynic rather than conservative. His whole reference-riddled shtick pivoted on pedantic cynicism and I used to actually dig him for it. The ideological aea change occurred right after 9/11, iirc, and seemed plausible (if totally misguided) at the time.

Whatever way Mamet’s political views swing, he’s still got my admiration as a play/scriptwright.

[Rob C]

Originally Posted by groover

It may appear awkward, but it's possible he's simply doing an effective job of communicating awkward feelings in an honest way. Do you feel that he was communicating ineffectively, and you're not sure what he's really trying to say after reading it?

It's also rare that anyone praises a well-written piece that they completely disagree with. After all, he doesn't say that he no longer considers himself a liberal, just not a brain-dead one.

Well, if you think he still considers himself a liberal after reading this piece, then I think he must have done a pretty ineffective job of communicating.

But as for bad writing, I mean, just to take the opening few sentences: maybe he's trying to be amusing, but is his anecdote about Mailer "changing his mind" about Waiting for Godot because he actually bothered to see it really a good example of someone responding to "the facts"?

Of course, he's knocking down a strawman by ascribing the "liberal view" as being "that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart." That's an awfully broad statement.

Which I guess leads me to my real problem, and I find this is true of most of these types of political conversion stories: The story boils down to "I've realized I had a simplistic, naive view of the world; so I've decided to adopt the opposite simplistic, naive view."

Why are we meant to take this seriously?

[Al in NYC]

Interesting that at the end of that long, confused, rambling mess he would name a nasty piece of work like Sowell as "our greatest contemporary philosopher." Actually, I had always assumed from his work (much of which I like) that he took a deeply dim view of human nature. It's really rather amusing to find out that he used to perceive himself otherwise.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Rob C

Why are we meant to take this seriously?

If you feel he's done an ineffective job of communicating, the answer is obvious. How can you take it seriously if you feel that you're not sure what he was really trying to say?

And if you feel that you do know what he meant, but you think he's wrong or confused, then his communication ability is not the issue. That you're trying to have it both ways when they're mutually exclusive reflects your true disagreement with what he's saying more than how he's saying it.

[Rob C]

I was hipped to this article by a blog I like--which noted:

"He wrote American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, Homicide, and House of Cards before figuring out that people are not basically good at heart? That's a pretty amazing job of compartmentalization."

Indeed...!

http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2008_0...99967374400572

[Monte Smith]

I love his dialogue. His politics? Bah, I'm willing to overlook that.

[Rob C]

Originally Posted by groover

If you feel he's done an ineffective job of communicating, the answer is obvious. How can you take it seriously if you feel that you're not sure what he was really trying to say?

And if you feel that you do know what he meant, but you think he's wrong or confused, then his communication ability is not the issue. I just think it's odd that you're trying to have it both ways when they're mutually exclusive.

Since I guess I'm communicating ineffectively, I'll just say, "I thought it was dumb", and leave it at that.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Rob C

"He wrote American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, Homicide, and House of Cards before figuring out that people are not basically good at heart? That's a pretty amazing job of compartmentalization."

I agree with this much, it does seem that his panglossian view of himself as an optimist regarding human nature has long been out-of-line with his true feelings. Perhaps he'd like to think of himself as a lover of mankind, but he's not.

[tippy]

We need a poll - do you love mankind? It's hard to love stupid people - fortunately for the stupid people they don't know who they are and can feel the same way.

[groover]

Mamet usually has a main character who is portrayed as a mostly innocent victim of other's evil nature, doesn't he? Apparently he himself was so focused on the sympathetic victim that he never fully considered what the behavior of his other characters was saying about human nature.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Thought it was an interesting piece aside from the baffling and near argument-killing beatification of Sowell (maybe he was thinking of Sowell's earlier, pre-pundit career, but still it's an absurd reach).

I agree with Brian that it was an interesting and honest piece, if a bit rambling and confused. I don't know enough about Sowell to have an opinion on that comment, but I gather that he really rubs some people the wrong way.

I actually have a book by Sowell at home that looked interesting enough for me to pluck out of the bargain bin, but I haven't yet got around to trying to read it.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by groover

I agree with Brian that it was an interesting and honest piece, if a bit rambling and confused. I don't know enough about Sowell to have an opinion on that comment, but I gather that he really rubs some people the wrong way.

Sowell is hardly a nasty piece of work. He's a thoughtful gentleman. He's probably unpopular because he tackles ethnicity issues from a cold-blooded free market perspective. My only complaint with him is that he tends to rewrite the same books again and again (a little like Chomsky, though neither so prolific nor so singleminded). His column is less impressive than his best works.

I'd guess Mamet is so impressed with him because he has just read him. And his works are particularly impressive if you have newly opened your mind to the idea that there are respectable arguments existent within the conservative freak show.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by groover

I agree with Brian that it was an interesting and honest piece, if a bit rambling and confused. I don't know enough about Sowell to have an opinion on that comment, but I gather that he really rubs some people the wrong way.

Way back when, he was more of what you might call a statistical sociologist (there's probably a more appropriate term) in that he tracked immigration patterns, how well or poorly various ethnic groups did when they arrived in the US and examined cultural and economic reasons why this was so. He did good work in un-simplifying some generally held assumptions about race, for instance (ie, West Indian and African blacks had fairly high per capita incomes whereas this didn't hold true for native American blacks) and European cultures (Northern Italians doing well, Southern Italians poorly, etc.) He didn't editorialize on it, iirc, just presented the data. He also, it's worth noting, was a passionate advocate for the legalization of drugs; not sure if that's still the case.

At some point, I think in the early 90s, he became co-opted by conservative media and, as I think is clear by the columns Wozniak reprints on occasion, has been reduced to tired one liners indistinguishable from the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world.

But whatever one's opinion of him, referring to him as a "philosopher" of any kind is more than a little bizarre.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

He's probably unpopular because he tackles ethnicity issues from a cold-blooded free market perspective.

Actually, that's what intrigued me about his book that I have. I will have to dig it out and read at least a chapter or two.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by Rob C

I"He wrote American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, Homicide, and House of Cards before figuring out that people are not basically good at heart? That's a pretty amazing job of compartmentalization."

yeah, this was what was inexplicable to me when I read this in the paper when it ran. also, how poorly written it was, yikes.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

But whatever one's opinion of him, referring to him as a "philosopher" of any kind is more than a little bizarre.

I can see where that's confusing, it sounds like Sowell is trying to avoid any overt philosophy, unless clinical analysis of facts and outcomes is the philosophy he's referring to. But I can understand that many are offended by facts and outcomes that don't support their preconceived notions.

[Gentle Giant]

I don't claim to know Mamet personally, but I have worshiped with him, as I used to belong to the temple he mentions in his piece. Yes, the congregation is overwhelmingly very liberal, and creative and committed, but it's also extremely wealthy, and he's certainly at or near the top of the pyramid. I believe he's a serious, observant Jew, but so is Leon Wieseltier - and both of them have produced works that can either please or provoke me.

What I find curious about Mamet's piece is A) it takes a real narcissist to think the general public gives a fuck what your political views are, and B) he says he no longer sees corporations as evil - not surprising since these corporations own the companies that own the companies that publish his works and produce his films. These corporations have made him rich and he's never had to be in the position of potentially losing his job by actually working for one.

Also, while he uses the word Iraq and briefly discussed "the military" he doesn't opine about the war, which among political issues these days is kind of a biggie. If anything, he excuses Bush for it because after all JFK got us into Vietnam (a little simplistic, but whatever). There's also no talk about human rights, access to equal education and quality healthcare, racism, sexism, not even anything about Israel. To him the whole question of being a political being is simply to comport yourself like a wise, old Talmudic scholar. Well sorry, fella, but political thought and action are waged in ideological trenches where you emerge dirty an d bloody, and that's when you win.

Mamet may no longer be a brain-dead liberal, but he's certainly become brain-dead. All in all, very disappointing and unimpressive.

[groover]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

What I find curious about Mamet's piece is A) it takes a real narcissist to think the general public gives a fuck what your political views are, and B) he says he no longer sees corporations as evil - not surprising since these corporations own the companies that own the companies that publish his works and produce his films. These corporations have made him rich and he's never had to be in the position of potentially losing his job by actually working for one.

A) Give him a break, he's just filling space in the local fish-wrap.

B) Do you think corporations are inherently evil? Should they be outlawed?

And happy Purim, Jason!

[rollhead]

David Mamet: "Fuck You!"

Rollie: "Fuck me? No. Fuck YOU!"

[groover]

Originally Posted by rollhead

David Mamet: "Fuck You!"

Rollie: "Fuck me? No. Fuck YOU!"

That's the kind of straightforward dialogue we're more used to hearing from Mamet, isn't it? Judging from this piece, he may have lost that knack.

[Monte Smith]

Most of you guys aren't guilty of this sin, but there is a sin, and it is "I don't like this artist because of their politics." Sometimes an artist is little more than their politics and in such a case no sin attaches. But most often an artist makes art more broad than their politics, so you're guilty of the sin of willful blindness to beauty if you clamp your mind shut on them because of their position on abortion or taxes or communism, or because of their self-identification with a cause or a party or a war.

It might be deceptively hard for liberlas. 99% of human artists are liberals. So are a few chimps who can paint and probably all the dolphins at Sea World. So you don't often come across an artist you like who voted for Reagan or dislikes socialism or who cringes at Koranic malfeasance. 99% of human artists are liberals. You probably think that speaks well for liberalism. Eh. I'd say it is a strong argument against.

So think of a person like me. Feel my pain. Pull my finger. I know you are poorly disposed to sympathize with the Montes of the world, but all the artists I like are liberals, 99% of the human ones. According to the "I'm Right, They Can Fuck Off" mentality (and I am right, and you can fuck off), I couldn't enjoy the plays of David Mamet until a few days ago when he came out as an apostate from polite opinion. I can now. But I have always liked the plays of David Mamet. And David Hare, leftwing lunatic. And Tom Stoppard (OK, he's a righty). And Brecht, the large-lunged pontificator of every wrong sociopathy in political history minus Hitlerism.

This is all said in a breath of self-congratulation because I am better than ya'll but also with condemnation to no one in particular. Good drama is good drama, and our "enemies" can teach us as much as our "friends." Now die.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by groover

A) Give him a break, he's just filling space in the local fish-wrap.

B) Do you think corporations are inherently evil? Should they be outlawed?

And happy Purim, Jason!

A) Granted, but there are lots of things I'd like him (or any artist I admire) to write about; himself isn't high on the list.

B) I don't think corporations are inherently evil; I do think they are immoral, if not inherently then inevitably, because there's no incentive for them to act otherwise. They perform an important function, no question about it, but so does my colon and if I don't clean up after myself it's going to have a negative impact on the environment. The problem with corporations is that neither they nor the government clean up after them.

And thank you.

[Gary Sisco]

What makes anyone think a writer's is any certain kind of politics?

If I had to make a choice based on writers' politics, I guess I'd be spending a lot less time reading than I do. Music, too, for that matter.