{"id":8434,"date":"2013-10-13T13:31:45","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T13:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/13\/a-note-on-david-mamet\/"},"modified":"2013-10-13T13:31:45","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T13:31:45","slug":"a-note-on-david-mamet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/13\/a-note-on-david-mamet\/","title":{"rendered":"A Note on David Mamet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I stumbled upon a good brisk read the other day by David Mamet<\/a> in the genre, How I finally saw the light and stopped being a benighted leftist<\/em>.  The title is The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture<\/em> (Sentinel, 2011).  Here is a taste, from a footnote on p. 10:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

*The Left and the Right, I saw, differ not about programs, but about goals — the goal of the Left is a government-run country and that of the Right the freedom of the individual from Government.  These goals are difficult to reconcile, as the Left cannot be brought  to actually state its intentions, nor to honestly evaluate the results of its actions.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In his second sentence, Mamet makes two  extremely important points.  The first is that leftists employ a stealth strategy.  They are not open about their ultimate goals.  The gun-grabbers among them, for example, will rarely state openly that one of their goals is the banning of the private ownership of handguns. They know full well that an open espousal of their totalitarian agenda would incite the opposition of the 'tea-baggers' as they derisively call Tea Party members as well as that of the rest of the rubes of fly-over country.   The second point it that leftists, as adherents of a quasi-religion, are committed to its nostrums whether or not they work out in reality.  Are the public schools better than they were in '65?  Obviously not.  So throw more money at them while harrassing homeschoolers and blocking voucher programs.  <\/span><\/p>\n

But I must quibble with Mamet's first sentence.  It is simply not the case that the goal of the Right is freedom of the individual from government.  That is a goal of anarchists, but conservatism is twice-removed from anarchism.  For between anarchism and conservatism lies libertarianism. Conservatives are law and order types.  They believe in a strong national defense.  They want the nation's borders to be secure.  All of this requires local, state, and Federal government. 
<\/span><\/p>\n

When leftists say as they repeatedly do that conservatives are anti-government, that is a lie and they know it.  It is a mistake for Mamet to give aid and comfort to this lie.  Conservatives are for limited government.  It takes no great logical acumen to see that if one is for limited<\/em> government, then one is for government<\/em>.  And even a liberal should be able to understand that it is a false alternative to suppose that the choice is between no government and totalitarian government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Addendum (10\/14)
<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Christopher Hitchens' NYT review<\/a> of Mamet begins thusly: "This is an extraordinarily irritating book, written by one of those people who smugly believe that, having lost their faith, they must ipso facto<\/em> have found their reason." <\/span><\/p>\n

And as I read more of it, I am becoming irritated myself.  Consider his answers to the questions put to him in an interview<\/a>.  The questions are serious, but he returns frivolous answers, e.g.:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

You also wrote about hating \u201cevery wasted, hard-earned cent I spent in taxes.\u201d What cent did you hate the most? <\/strong> <\/span>
All of them gall me the most. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Only a lunatic extremist would think every cent paid in taxes was wasted.  And surely no conservative would maintain such an absurd position.<\/span><\/p>\n

We don't need more extremists.  Contemporary liberalism is a set of extreme positions.  The answer, however, is not some opposite form of extremism.  I believe it was Goethe who said that no one is more hostile to a position than  one who once espoused it but has come to reject it.  I paraphrase.
<\/span><\/p>\n

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I stumbled upon a good brisk read the other day by David Mamet in the genre, How I finally saw the light and stopped being a benighted leftist.  The title is The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (Sentinel, 2011).  Here is a taste, from a footnote on p. 10: *The Left and … Continue reading “A Note on David Mamet”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[389,289,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bibliophilia","category-books","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}