I await his denunciation of Chappaquiddick.
I thought "Shut the fuck up" was Mamet's typical reaction to, well, everything.
"Shut the fucking fuck up, you fucking fuck," actually.
Your link is broken, Labs. Who ever told you you could blog with men?
I used to have simplistic opinions. Now I have new simplistic opinions.
It's a very weird essay from which it's hard to figure out how he'd actually stand on any matter of policy. He's in favor of a constitutional system of ambition checking ambition, which is nice. Other than that, the least abstract claim he makes is about the awesomeness of Thomas Sowell, which I'm not particularly ok with.
He says Thomas Sowell is the greatest living American philosopher. How is one supposed to take this?
pwned by w/d, but still.
To the person involved, converting from one stupid, ill-considered set of opinions to another can seem life-changing. To onlookers, just tedious.
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.
David Mamet is fifteen years old.
Maybe he can get into cancer research instead.
This all sounds like Dennis Miller's metempsychosis -- a kinda dumb intellectual move, marked by general egotism and really bad timing.
How is one supposed to take this?
I take it as the single most ridiculous statement of the piece.
Is Mamet's wife still Rebecca Pidgeon?
The Village Voice's website is not cooperating with me. Oh, now it finally did in a new window.
I think the essay is just a veiled excuse for why Spartan sucked: "I had Bush Derangement Syndrome!"
This is the same David Mamet who wrote "Oleanna" in 1992, "Wag the Dog" screenplay in 1997, "Glengarry Glen Ross" in 1984, and we're meant to believe that he's only just discovered his deep reactionary streak? Weird.
Also, dude, this is precisely the wrong time to be jumping on a horse called "markets are best, government intervention in markets always makes things worse". Because guess who disagrees? The markets.
Is Mamet's wife still Rebecca Pidgeon?
The way this question is worded makes it seem as if the same person could continue to be Mamet's wife while no longer being Rebecca Pidgeon.
15: Well, if she wants to keep her newly reactionary man happy, she could easily become Rebecca Mamet.
While reading this article, I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up.
wikipedia will give you answers instead of pedantry: "Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse were married from 1977 to 1990, and have two children together, Willa and Zosia (pronounced Zoh-sha). Since 1991, Mamet has been married to actress and singer-songwriter, Rebecca Pidgeon. They have two children, Clara and Noah."
Is Mamet's wife still Rebecca Pidgeon?
No, the troika of wolves pursuing her finally caught up.
Not that I have anything against pedantry: her troika (Russian sled drawn by three horses) was attacked by an unspecified number of wolves, as I recall.
What? People can't get divorced?
Lindsey Crouse is a really good actress.
her troika (Russian sled drawn by three horses) was attacked by an unspecified number of wolves, as I recall.
No, I had the "pursued" part right. For all we know the wolves were pursuing her troika to deliver some kind of delicious baked goods.
But they didn't show the kill, did they. Fucking censorship. I can watch a man and woman having sex, or two men having sex, or two women, but I can't watch a beautiful woman being torn apart by wolves. This country's priorities are sick.
What? People can't get divorced?
They can, but "Is Rebecca Pidgeon still Mamet's wife" and "Is Mamet's wife still Rebecca Pidgeon" have different, you know, valences.
Is Mamet's pidgeon Rebecca still wifing?
22, IMDB suggests cookies, in fact.
24, that may be true in the realms of connotation, but the fact remains that the copula was used.
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.
David Mamet is fifteen years old.
If only! I think this is a whole subset of conservative-libertarians. The "I used to be a big hippy, then learned corporations are all wonderful!" subset. Hypothesis: these people are a related and perhaps overlapping set with Ogged's category of "annoying liberals".
14
"Also, dude, this is precisely the wrong time to be jumping on a horse called "markets are best, government intervention in markets always makes things worse". Because guess who disagrees? The markets."
No, just some people who lost money in the markets and want to be bailed out. The only difference this time is the identity of the losers.
That essay is all over the map. The typical unfogged thread is more on topic than that.
He says Thomas Sowell is the greatest living American philosopher
Labs? Maybe THIS is what's wrong with your philosophy class. Not enough Thomas-fucking-Sowell.
How fortunate for the hoi polloi that the greatest living philosopher also has a syndicated column.
30: Jame's, come on, you're not that clueless. Show me a functioning market of any size or complexity that even exists without regulation.
30: bzzt, nope, that's a talking point. Plenty of people who made money still rather like the idea of the continued existence of a financial system to spend it in.
33 34
Lots of markets exist without regulation. The market for cocaine for example. But that wasn't my point.
My point was there always are going to be people who don't like particular market outcomes and who appeal to the government to alter them. These people are not the voice of "the markets" even when they happen to be rich and powerful. I am skeptical of complaints about market outcomes in general but I am particularly skeptical of complaints from rich and powerful people who have lost money due to their own greed and stupidity.
Favorite comment from the Village Voice thread:
Shorter Mamet:
"I used to be a total douchebag, but now I'm a total asshole. Yayyy! Look at Me!"
My own take:
"I'm 17 years old and I just read The Road to Serfdom!"
Lots of markets exist without regulation. The market for cocaine for example.
This is hilarious. Shearer, you really are somebody's elaborate piece of performance art, aren't you?
35
"30: bzzt, nope, that's a talking point. Plenty of people who made money still rather like the idea of the continued existence of a financial system to spend it in."
People who wants to be bailed out often predict catastrophe if they aren't. That doesn't make it true.
Then I repeat myself (do I repeat myself? very well, I repeat myself. I am large, I contain platitudes)
Plenty of people who made money still rather like the idea of the continued existence of a financial system to spend it in.
40
Or maybe they just want to keep the marks in the game.
James, please don't comment on topics that I know much better than you. It hurts me to read your comments.
Lots of markets exist without regulation. The market for cocaine for example.
Cocaine can only find a market b/c of our government-regulated economy, so I don't think the example holds.
anyway, the bigger problem is that politicalfootball meant "market" in the broad sense, and you replied with an example of an extremely narrow market. not the same thing.
Sweet Jeebus, I'm glad it wasn't just me.
I admit that I had a couple beers last night, but it was two and two only. But when I read Mamet's essay early this morning, it made my head hurt.
It was so confused and rambling and off-topic and seemed like it might be about to make some kind of point before it veered off into some other alleyway. As I forced myself through it, I thought, Mamet's generally considered a fairly sharp playwright/screenwriter/novelist so I must just not be getting his point.
You don't know how glad I am to stumble into this den of befuddlement and find others like me: people who think David Mamet doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about even remotely.
Sad, so very sad, when a writer can't even convey in words whatever his dipshit point was anyway.
Clearly, Mamet has determined that market forces reward those people who reject liberalism more than those who remains liberals.
See Juan Williams, Mara Liason (sp?), etc.
Look for his employment with Fox any day now: "Liberal Democrat David Mamet says 'Democrats are idiots!'"
The "I used to be a big hippy, then learned corporations are all wonderful!" subset.
Makes me think of Lileks and his too-easy-to-mock obsession with Target.
How fortunate for the hoi polloi that the greatest living philosopher also has a syndicated column.
It's like we're France or something! Finally recognizing the philosopher/intellectual as the conscience of the nation! Go us/US!
Not only that, but our president's choice for history's greatest philosopher had his own daily comic strip, at least until Johnny Hart died.
den of befuddlement
If I ever have my own blog again, that is even better than "Thus Blogged Anderson."
Shouldn't it be that the market for cocaine exists *despite* government intervention?
Shouldn't it be that the market for cocaine exists *despite* government intervention?
Gov't intervention drives up the price and creates production/marketing incentives that would not otherwise exist.
(Wow, that was great, I actually looked like I knew what I was talking about there.)
I am large, I contain platitudes
Can this be the new mouseover text?
I found ... 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.
"Oh" indeed. This is a put-on, right? An elaborate joke perpetrated by Mamet in the voice of one of his characters, except without all the "fucks" and stuff, right? Sadly, no.
A quick history review for Mamet is in order. Eisenhower arguably started the Vietnam debacle by sending Diem to Vietnam and funding and training his armies there. The first U.S. ground troops were sent there by LBJ. Kennedy won the Kennedy-Nixon election by a margin wider than the number of electoral votes from Illinois. There is no evidence that any CIA agents were among the Cuban exile force that invaded Cuba, much less "hundreds" of them. Sorenson always said that Kennedy had significant input on the book. (Bonus question: tell me, David, if I reveal to you that Brent Bozell wrote The Conscience of a Conservative for Barry Goldwater, will you become a liberal again?) And if Kennedy was in bed with the Mafia, what on earth was Bobby Kennedy doing going after all those mob members?
At best Mamet's claim to no longer be a "brain dead" liberal would appear to be only half true.
"Thomas Sowell is the greatest living American philosopher"
I am SURE this is a strong sign that the essay has, at the very least, a satirical element to it.
At least, I hope it does, or else it way too strongly proves Rorty's point that artistic brilliance, even in a highly literary and urbane sphere, may be completely unrelated to moral or intellectual insight of any other kind...
Any thoughts on the piece once you get to the very end? It was my thought that the "... and yet ..." and the very last night were intended to suggest that the rest of the piece should be read in a less literal light than you might initially have assumed. That, and the fact that Mamet loves trick endings...oh, and that it's being carried by _The Village Voice_...
I think that high-testosterone gut thinkers usually end up right-wing. A fair number of rock n rollers ended up that way.
57 - Are you saying that Mamet is trolling?
I can finally read the essay! Wow! Perhaps the stupidest opinion piece by a prominent writer since Mario Vargos Llosa's ode to the benefits of Spanish conquest back in the early nineties.
57.2: Rorty's point has been proved a dozen times over and more, surely.
This is running on the front page of Yahoo. I almost thought it was a trick, but no, someone's actually pointing out the obvious in a mainstream publication.
McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China Iraq
This essay actually spells out that which I do not understand about the laissez-faire aspects of modern conservatism. Namely, why is it always assumed that the leaders of governments are corrupt and evil, but the leaders of corporations are shiny beacons of light?
63: because corporations produce things that rich assholes desire, and governments do not.
It's about accountability, F. If corporations act in destructive ways, they will go out of business, because of the lightning-fast trail of word of mouth that inevitably pervades society. Unless there is a monopoly or they can stay solvent longer than any of the people who have been wronged, which is obviously impossible. This would also be untrue if some sort of misleading advertising could theoretically exist which causes people to think the corporations are not as evil as they actually are.
Whereas if governments act in destructive ways, they can't be replaced, unless there is some sort of democratic system for doing so.
Also, because of the way markets work, profits don't usually exist, because they would be inefficient. So the really smart bad guys don't stay in business very long, and only the philanthropists have staying power.
I have read these books by Thomas Sowell and they are surprisingly good:
http://www.amazon.com/Migrations-Cultures-World-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465045898/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-America-History-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465020755/ref=pd_sim_b_title_3
His essays tend to be unhinged though.
Ahh, I get it now. Shorter David Mamet: People are innately bad, but the world is somehow magically an okay place. Therefore, we should stop trying to make it better.
59: I dunno about trolling, but he does have a deep sense of both irony and suspense, so you never can tell...
61: "Rorty's point has been proved a dozen times over and more, surely."
I know, surely, surely--Refinstahl, Pound etc. Yet that doesn't make its object lessons any less irritating or unpleasant to swallow. =S
Yes it was.
Or else you can adopt a less generic name!
I recommend "Ericula".
70: Oh! Then the other Eric above you probably needs a new handle.
58: in America, maybe. It's socially dependent. I'm sure in Russia they end up Communists who are nostalgic for Stalin, who knew how to handle shit. Whatever the reactionary position is.
I can't be bothered to read this essay, but I must say that NPR does suck. That's why your modern liberal prefers the Daily Show. Perhaps Mamet just was not informed of that in time.
CholEric? GenEric? HystEric? DysentEric? TurmEric? SphinctEric?
I was just saying that if Mamet thinks NPR is The Left, he's safe from zombies because what they want is brains. I hate NPR so much that people get tired of hearing me say so. The NPR Voice has killed liberalism and the Democratic Party.
Mamet will be coming out with a new play just in time for the Republican National Convention: Zell Miller: The Musica
Jesus, Emerson, did McManus bite you recently or what? Go swig down some holy water or something.
41: so what? Whether they're angels or crooks, they are, in fact "the market" and you don't get to pretend otherwise just because they're not the self-reliant Randian supermen of your imagination.
70-72, 75: Sorry!!! (And I *definitely* do not need to be either CholEric or DysentEric!!)
Back to the matter at hand...after having read it again, I'm now more convinced that it was intended primarily to provoke, and to promote his new play, in particular to conservatives.
Consider the bit about how he infers that government is generally useless from his experience that taking the director away from the play usually leads to shorter rehearsals and a better play.
Does he truly think that? If so, Mamet's a big name, and he's plenty of cash and pull, and he's hardly a creative wallflower--so why isn't he expressing this belief creatively and attempting to produce at least a few director-less plays and films? Have you heard anything about him trying to throw a bunch of actors on the boards with a script and just watching what happens? So it's hard to think that he's not trying to pull his audience's chain here at least a little bit.
I don't think the piece is just "trolling" or full out satire, though--I think it's a plea for understanding and listening, and an argument that there are valid points on both sides...
80: That's hurtful, Eel Man. I am my own person, not a slave of McManus. I've always been this way.
GenEric? ChimEric? A1phanum3ric? Bode Eric?
79: HATE HATE HATE
Mamet, Mamet, masturbate, Mamet
Mamet's essay now comes with the Andrew Sullivan seal of approval.
"So good to see that he understands the core conservative idea," Sully says.
In theory it seems like there should be a distinction between being a conservative and being an idiot, but. . .
86.3: presumably it wouldn't be clear to either Mamet or Sullivan, since they are both (the latter certainly, the former apparently).
Are there any cases of people switching later in life from right to left? No "I was against big government but now I've seen the destruction caused by markets" experiences? I won't draw any infuriating lessons from this.
81
"41: so what? Whether they're angels or crooks, they are, in fact "the market" and you don't get to pretend otherwise just because they're not the self-reliant Randian supermen of your imagination."
No they aren't, they are participants in the market. Participants in the market may have political opinions, the market doesn't.
Are there any cases of people switching later in life from right to left?
John Dean?
re: 88
Happens all the time. When people who once had money lose it, and then want a safety net.
So, your infuriating lessons can fuck off.
John Dean went from the right to the center when he pled guilty. He's not left now, he's an old-fashioned pre-Nixon Republican.
There is the famous trio of National Review apostates: Joan Didion, Garry Wills, John Leonard. Didion was never exactly on the left; in some ways -- with what people have called nihilism, though I don't think that's exactly right -- she's in a similar boat to David Simon.
Then there's Austin Bramwell, outlining the trajectory of many a humiliated former movementarian leftward, if not exactly to "the left" per se.
It was stipulated *later in life*, and Brock and Lind were both pretty young. Of course, maybe nobody changes their opinions after 30, or very few. And who is John Leonard?
Wasn't Brock about 40 when he came out with that book?
Lind was 34 when the book linked to came out. Born the same year as Brock.
I nominate Ariana Huffington as the new Kobe.
I can't think of Arianna Huffington without thinking of Al Franken referring to her as "the beautiful, but evil, Arianna Huffington."
When I read the Mamet column yesterday, my first thought was that the Unfoggetariat would not be kind to the apostate. Burn in hell, former liberal. But I took his point to be that the "Amerika- always wrong" thinking that he had previously engaged in was perhaps too simplistic. I would say his essay reminded me of the quote attibuted to Twain about how your Dad is an idiot when you are 16, but by 25 you are amazed at how smart he has become.
103: IOW, his point was a worn-out cliche about the sort of caricature of liberalism typically indulged by ex-liberals who develop a fixation on all the little things that have annoyed them over the years and mentally reduce "the left" to a collection of tics. This fixation is handy as an excuse to switch focus to a set of anti-liberal positions that don't require much in the way of thinking through. It's a typical sample of the genre.
104 gets it exactly right. But who is surprised? Mamet's a fine writer, but he's been clearly a tool (and a misogynist) forever.