village voice > news > David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' by David MametMore on this later - but I do believe the guy's hit on the essential contradiction of liberalism. "Everything sucks, but people are essentially good."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."
This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.
But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it?
Hmmm.
More on this later, hopefully.
Later -
You might want to take a look at the comments. Boy, there's a lot of folks who are calling him everything but a traitor to the liberal cause (and by the time you get to them, there's probably going to be someone saying that) ... but some who are saying he nailed it. What's your take?
J.
Comments (6)
** I do believe the guy's hit on the essential contradiction of liberalism. "Everything sucks, but people are essentially good."**
Liberals escape the contradition by amending it to "People are essentially good, except for Conservatives". But that leads to other problems. Inevitably, they hit the paradox: somehow, the enemies of their nation abroad must be basically good, reasonable people, even though they cannot say the same about their political opponents at home- despite the fact that the enemies abroad kill their political opponents, while the domestic foes do not.
Hence, Chavez, who has been a cruel, repressive tyrant, shutting down the media and trying to gain "generalissimo for life" powers, is good, Bush, who barely acknowledges the existence of the media and has absolutely no intent of changing the constitution to stay in power, is evil.
Weird.
Ben
Posted by Ben | March 12, 2008 9:35 AM
Posted on March 12, 2008 09:35
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, does it? I've never really understood it unless it's a severe case of envy. Bush, because he didn't do what they would have done, is thereby a weak and ineffectual leader. Chavez has pushed a lot of their wet dreams into reality - and it doesn't matter if the reality created is BAD, what matters is that he was able to implement their fantasies in real life.
(You ever noticed how the left screams about censorship by the right, yet are the quickest to try to implement it? I think they protest way too damn much...
J.
Posted by JLawson | March 12, 2008 11:47 PM
Posted on March 12, 2008 23:47
>>You ever noticed how the left screams about censorship by the right, yet are the quickest to try to implement it? >>
Haven't gotten to "Fair Tax" yet...working on "Liberal Facism". Interesting, but tough reading.
I recommend it, though - it really does explain a lot of their views and arguments.
Posted by suek | March 13, 2008 12:07 PM
Posted on March 13, 2008 12:07
One line I picked up on from the article:
That pretty much explains the difference between the Progressives and the Conservatives. The Progressives look at any shortfall from perfection as total failure, the Conservatives try to look at a situation as it is and try to figure out, first does it really need changing, and if it does, is there an affordable way to improve on it.To give the progressives their due credit, they are fairly good at pointing out society's problem areas. Unfortunately they are also lousy at coming up with solutions to fix the problems they have found. Progressives tend to try to implement grandiose plans that will instantly vault everyone involved to a new level of Perfect Fairness without doing the basic calculations of how much power it will take to make that vault, where that power is going to come from, what other power needs you will have to sacrifice in order to get it, or whether anyone but them thinks the new level they plan for everyone is indeed Perfect.
This is illustrated by the standard Progressive chant at protest rallies:
"What do we Want? (Fill in currently fashionable socially responsible goal here).
When do we Want it? NOW!"
Conservatives on the other hand tend to resist acknowleding the need for any social change until it is absolutely undeniable.
Conservatives do get credit because when finally pushed into admitting that some social change is desirable they are pretty good at organizing systems to implement it.
Example: Executive Order 9981, signed by President Harry Truman in 1948, that started the process of ending racial segregation in the United States Military.
http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/integrate/welcome.html
otpu
Posted by otpu | March 13, 2008 9:06 PM
Posted on March 13, 2008 21:06
I've not been impressed by Progressive rhetoric since I was with Anita. They're always saying they've got the perfect answers to all the problems of the world, but somehow tend to overlook reality in coming up with their solutions.
I think what really did it was the Clarence Thomas hearings, and afterward with Clinton. Anita Hill was perfectly believeable, despite how odd her story was. The various ladies who came up and said Clinton had coerced them into sex... weren't. It became pretty clear that the concerns were situational, and that party affliation was a good half of the evidence when it came to determining whether something wrong had occurred.
But I think that a lot of people have realized the 'progressive' label is anything but. Witness the lack of support that Code Pink and the anti-war movement has, as well as the various 'progressive' causes. DailyKos is an echo chamber that can only maintain integrity through severe censorship of opposing opinion, and HuffPost is much the same. They know they're weak - so they don't dare allow questioning or opposing viewpoints.
J.
Posted by JLawson | March 15, 2008 9:51 AM
Posted on March 15, 2008 09:51
This is why Goldberg's book on Liberal Fascism is so interesting: it puts the historical roots of progressivism out for all to see and realize that the language spoken is no different now, than it was then... just a nicer 'spin' to it. Just grab a nice wig and lipstick and I'm sure you could rent it to Mr. Spitzer... but it would still be a pig.
Posted by ajacksonian | March 15, 2008 1:25 PM
Posted on March 15, 2008 13:25