David Mamet and Political Views

There’s an essay over at The Village Voice that you want to read before it goes away:
“Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal'” by David Mamet Here’s a brief excerpt.

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? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

Some thought-provoking stuff in there. It’s good to see someone brave enough to change his views and talk about it politically. Since I consider the Voice a very liberal publication, it’s especially interesting to see the piece there.

Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
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One thought on “David Mamet and Political Views

  1. It seems that this essay is something liberal to the point that the person who writes it has lost its trust with men in general. He might have suffered from something dark in his community or perhaps the people who are around him were cruel. I think that there is indeed a bad side with men in general but if we look at it we can say that is the essence of being human. Even God knows that men have negative traits but tend to accept there mistakes as well as this things because he knows that not all people have bad side they tend to have on when provoke or in some situation but I always tend to remember that there is always goodness in even those bad people as well.

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