Interesting article from the Village Voice

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1307

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'
An election-season essay
by David Mamet

Interesting read....long, but worthwhile.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html/3

45degreeN · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:40 am Post subject:

Sorry just couldn't connect to the Village voice site. Is that the paper from "The Prisoner" TV series. That was
"The Village" you know... Laughing

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1307

no...apparently the flood of traffic to the site crashed it today...hopefully after the wailing, gnashing, and tearing of clothes is over...the article will be available again...

Mamet is a very successful screenwriter (the Untouchable, Glengary Glenross, among others) and playwrite. He is also a theater critic for the Village Voice....and he was a staunch progressive liberal and outspoken critic of Bush/Conservatism/etc, etc....

wikipedia entry here

and he's had an epiphany:

45degreeN · Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:49 am Post subject:

So this monument to liberalism is now conservative? From one extreme to another? Where's the nuance, the slowly evolving mentality?

Gone from "government is always corrupt" to never corrupt?

Corporations are always to be hated to a position where they are always to be loved?

This is a sign of a mental breakdown rather than a positional evolution.

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1307

so....you still haven't read the article I see...

45degreeN · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:09 am Post subject:

OK, OK I finally read the article and guess what, there is no conclusion, its climax is left dangling in the wind. So what if he now has begun to re-examine his prejudices that is good for everyone to do.

Mamet never actually wrote that he changed his mind on anything.

You just hope he did, but the words are not on the screen to read, sorry they're just not there.

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1307

First, thanks for finally reading it Smile

Second, I think his main point is on page 4...

From the same source...

"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.

No change? you sure?

I'm deliberatly refraining from being snarky, becuase I think that would be counter-productive....but I will use popular culture once again to try to highlight what I see as a "willing suspencion of belief" from folks that refuse to see the world as it "IS"....

It's humor, but I think it's stands on its own.

45degreeN · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:10 am Post subject:

It might be hard to tell but I really am a centrist. I hold dogmatic opinions on very few things. I can see both sides of most issues and have argued them both also.

The problems stems from those who refuse to see both sides of the problems, who refuse to see that honest people can differ without declaring the other side evil.

Neither corporations nor governments are ideal venues for getting things done they are merely what we have presently as tools toward the goals we seek. Each in their way fails to live up to the ideal and for that we need to constantly search out better ways. Let's keep the good and reject the bad and refuse to listen to those dogmatists who insist there is nothing that ought to be done.

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1307

here here! and I agree completely Smile

RevJP · Moderator Joined: 18 Apr 2003 Posts: 6845 Location: USA

45... you've posted something in this forum that I can completely agree with.

theseldomscene · Banned Joined: 17 Mar 2005 Posts: 7817

the masses are generally centrist...they hang out and lazily do nothing until one of or both of the extreme sides screams very loud...

i have found most of the time moderates are people incapable of forming any real opinions or taking any stand one way or another either because they are disinterested or uninformed...they must be lead or driven in one direction or another to get anything done...or even better...

both directions at the same time to form any compromise that allows for improvement...

that is one reason i think it is important to keep our gov. in a well balanced state of friction...because not only do we have those who stand around in the middle doing nothing until the extremes bring up the problems, while only offering limited, if any, solutions...but they actually brag about being in such a spot...far out...

just my opinion...