The Convert

David Mamet is an acute dramatist, but political analyst, not so much. He has this article in the Village Voice (the web site of which appears to run on a 20 MHz PC AT), in which he describes his conversion from "brain dead" liberal to merely brain dead - or as I guess he calls it, conservative.

He traces his epiphany to an auto trip:

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."

Perhaps we can see the genesis of his disease already. Clearly he is one of those "Israel uber alles" types who feels that any attempt to suggest that those close genetic relatives of the Jews, the Palestinians, might be human rather than vermin is a deadly affront.

The caricature of liberalism he portrays, of course, is indeed quite absurd: corporations are evil, the military is evil, government is the answer. The countervailing conservative caricature he apparently subscribes to is equally vacuous:

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.

Oddly enough, his own plays and movies usually seem to have directors - and he directs quite a bit himself.

Juries, of course, are an example of government intervention. Spontaneous community action is actually more precisely known as lynching.

"And so they work it out." The clearest example of this bit of conservative philosophy in action is Iraq. Dim witted idealogues convinced themselves that if the tyrant were removed, the Iraqis would "work it out."

How much folly do you need to see before you learn? In Mamet's case, it is apparently unbounded. He probably doesn't even realize that the real reason he is a conservative is that he is old, rich, and a Likudnik.