The presidential contest is not simply an election about who rules America; it is also an election about which set of principles defines American politics. For the past two and a half decades, conservatism has set the agenda. Is the left making a comeback?
I don't think so. Notice that Democrats avoid terms like "the left" and even "liberalism" like the plague, while Republicans routinely associate themselves with the "right" and the "conservative" label. Also the left is now defined by shrieking demagogues like Michael Moore, while intelligent people are keeping their distance or moving out of this menagerie.
In this connection, the case of David Mamet is a revealing one. It has now been six months since playwright David Mamet declared himself an admirer of America and the Constitution, and bid farewell to what he called the "brain dead left." Our left-leaning literary and cultural intelligentsia is still in shock.
The New Statesman warned that Mamet was embracing a "Hobbesian strain of conservatism." The folks at the Daily Kos website feigned indifference: "Who really cares?" But until this time Mamet was regarded as a virtual demigod of American high culture. Now we can expect the accolades to stop.
So what turned Mamet around? Well, it's been a change coming for some time now, and presumably it's not the kind of change that Barack Obama is looking for. Consider this piece of dialog from Mamet's play Bobby Gould in Hell. When Bobby echoes the old liberal nostrum, "Nothing's black and white," he receives this crushing response: "Nothing's black and white? What about a panda?"
Then there was a play that I saw several years ago on Broadway, Mamet's Oleanna. While Mamet disclaimed any political motives, you only had to see the play to recognize that it was about the feminist witch-hunt. Basically a female student (somewhat reminiscent of a young Hillary Clinton at Wellesley) makes false allegations of sexual harassment against a well-meaning but incautious liberal professor. In the name of the sisterhood, she destroys the poor man's career. I think resistance to political correctness played a big role in showing Mamet the exit out of liberalism.
Still, Mamet's essay in a March issue of the Village Voice, "Why I am No Longer a Brain Dead Liberal," came as a complete surprise. In this essay Mamet did not declare himself a Republican or a McCain voter. HIs conversion was to a kind of philosophical conservatism. Mamet affirmed what he called the conservative or tragic view of life over the liberal or perfectionist view.
Mamet openly identified with his Jewish heritage and boldly said that National Public Radio might as well stand for "National Palestinian Radio." Mamet also expressed unabashed love for America, which is something that left-wing Democrats only express at their presidential conventions when it is time to put on a performance for the American people who are watching. The rest of the time they are mentored by the likes of Jeremiah Wright whose motto is better expressed as "God damn America."
Perhaps most touching, Mamet expressed the profound sense of liberation that all independent-thinking people feel when they stop kowtowing to liberal shibboleths. "I no longer need to believe the drivel that is spoken around me," Mamet said. "I feel lighter already." To which I can only say: welcome home, David Mamet.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 26)
31. So this panda walks into a bar and orders a sandwich, as soon as he was done eating, he pulled out two six-shooters and started shooting up into the air. As soon as he was out of bullets, he turned around and walked out. Just as he was leaving, the stunned bartender asked "Panda? What the hell?" The panda simply replied "I'm a panda, look it up". The stunned bartender went and found his Encyclopedia Britannica and looked up "Panda". After reading through most of the entry on Pandas he noted the following line "...pandas eat shoots and leaves...".
It's funnier when it's not in print.
Ryan Anderson at 8:42AM on Sep 19th 2008
32. The liberals are cultish. There are a set of rules to follow to be deemed a true feminist, 'progressive', environmentalist..... Any veering off their chosen course brings the brand of anti-feminist, anti-progressive......... Free and original thought are discouraged.
RIChris at 9:05AM on Sep 19th 2008
33. The liberals are cultish. There are a set of rules to follow to be deemed a true feminist, 'progressive', environmentalist..... Any veering off their chosen course brings the brand of anti-feminist, anti-progressive......... Free and original thought are discouraged.
RIChris at 9:05AM on Sep 19th 2008
A classic and almost immediate example of the foolish tendency to label everything as "black or white".
There are as many variations in "liberal" thought as in "conservative" viewpoints. The attitude this poster exemplifies (tarring evrything with broad brush strokes, rather than looking at or even discussing specific issues) overlooks the fact that not all conservatives (let alone Republicans) are one issue voters (i.e. abortion, teaching creationism, etc.), any more than all liberals agree on these same issues. It is, of course, much easier to create broadly perceieved generalizations, which once they have been "labeled", require no further thought on the part of those who believe the opposite viewpoint is "right" (pardon the small pun!).
Harvey at 9:35AM on Sep 19th 2008
34. This is the same Mamet who created "The Unit" for television. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is the most OOH-RAH, gung-ho, flag waving, anti-terrorist, all-American, neo-con, propagandizing piece of toilet-vision I have witnessed in a long time.
Exactly when did this (formerly) great writer sell out? And why?
Robert at 9:57AM on Sep 19th 2008
35. Robert; that's they guy. The unit is TERRIBLE! It's like a wet dream for people who want to see the constitution shredded so we can have an all powerful police force.
He's also the writer of "Glengarry Glen Ross", so I'm not 100% sure he was ever a liberal per se.
Ryan Anderson at 10:15AM on Sep 19th 2008
36. RIChris at 9:05AM on Sep 19th 2008
Try reading Camilla Paglia's column on
Salon.com. She explains it exactly to a tee.
Anyone at variance from the dogma is to be expunged.
M2D5 at 10:26AM on Sep 19th 2008
37. "It's like a wet dream for..."
Gee, sound's just like- SARAH PALIN!
And they call liberals BRAIN-DEAD?
Robert at 10:28AM on Sep 19th 2008
38. Conservatives:
Open yourself up:
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/09/jonathan_haidt.html
Ian X. Christian at 10:32AM on Sep 19th 2008
39. M2D2; remember when McCain was "expunged" for supporting campaign finance reform and for not exactly towing the line on border security and immigration? Good times....
Ryan Anderson at 10:44AM on Sep 19th 2008
40. Or stay the where you are... same goes for liberals.
Ian X. Christian at 10:45AM on Sep 19th 2008
41. Typical dimwit drivel. Then again one would expect that from someone who supports a party led by a lieing, senile, flip-flopping war monger and a lieing shrew.
Geoff Barker at 10:58AM on Sep 19th 2008
42. DD; this blog could have been so much shorter. Why not just say that Mamet, like Lady Rothschild, and years earlier Ronald Reagan, and so many other enlightened Democrats finally came to the conclusion: "The Democratic Party left me - I didn't leave the Democratic Party".
fanman at 11:03AM on Sep 19th 2008
43. "'I need to believe the drivel that is spoken around me,' Mamet said. "
Indeed, Dinesh. Indeed.
Your drivel is best spoken around those who desire your kind of America.
And with any luck, any small piece of good fortune in a country that desperately needs a bit of fortune, your kind of America is headed for history."
LOL. If the folks who support Dinesh's kind of America ever gained full power, they'd send him a one day ticket to New Dehli before their first year in power was over.
Ed W. at 11:06AM on Sep 19th 2008
44. Ryan Anderson at 10:44AM on Sep 19th 2008
McCain was "expunged" ??
Then who is this , John McCain who is the presidential nominee of his party ?
Somebody must have tried a plain old eraser or sponge to remove this indelible ink.
McCain came back. How many on the other side have survived their break with the high priests/priestesses of political thought?
Does the name Lieberman ring a bell? Lifelong supporter for the party line until a disagreement and then a political "double tap behind the ear".
M2D5 at 11:24AM on Sep 19th 2008
45. ATHEIST
Reply to: Neither side will be persuaded to a new viewpoint by assaulting their egos and pride. The only real way to get people to stay open to new ideas is through genuine and respectful conversation, and by each person acknowledging that they don't actually know much at all for certain
_________________
I disagree.
I think christianity is a cult, and they want to keep their members.
I've tried to start a conversation with college students and the "campus minister" said, "Don't talk to him, he has the spirit of Satan inside him."
If you open the Gospel of Mark, an invisible demon identifies Jesus as the Holy One of God.
ANYONE who takes the Gospel of Mark as a credible text.... is a friggin' idiot. They have turned off part of their brains, and are losing the ability to think.
I'm giving you a warning.
Christianity MAKES YOU STUPID.
Dinesh is a great example. Dinesh writes page after page of WRONG stuff because he opens the Bible and ignores 85% of the words.
He pulls one sentence from a paragraph and says, "See?"
If he would read the entire paragraph, he would realize he's WRONG.
That's how being a Catholic has made Dinesh DUMBER than he was.
It's not a question of having respect for Christians. It's more like shell shock over "How can so many people be such friggin' idiots?"
William Hays at 11:28AM on Sep 19th 2008