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One doesn't expect to see a book by David Mamet in Current Affairs. The Pulitzer Prize playwright and director is, by any measure versatile, having not only written plays and films, but also created children's stories, memoirs, guidebooks on acting, an examination of anti-Semitism, a book of verse, and even a graphic novel. In this collection of short, informal essays, he describes the reasons for his disillusionment with "brain-dead" liberalism. Another round of batteries in our cultural wars.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning showman and "reformed Liberal" rants about the precarious state of the nation.
In 39 short essays, playwright, screenwriter and director Mamet (Theatre, 2010) discusses many of his least-favorite things, including taxes, sloth, foreign aid, the notion of global warming, big government, taxes, the present Democratic administration, liberals, taxes and "social justice" (quotes his).Did we mention taxes? With the mood of serious discussion, the author weights this jeremiad with stilted argot and copious footnotes that are simply more of the same arguments in reduced typeface. But Mamet is sharper than the conventional scold, and, like his most memorable stage characters, he offers a mashup of notions, some commendable, supported by reference to very selective history. Unabashed in making blanket, unfounded assertions, the gifted dramatist erects nincompoop straw men easily demolished with clever, impassioned rhetoric. Detection of undeniable flaws in liberal logic, rightly derided, gives way to ad hominemargument,post hocreasoning and faulty classification—it's disputation, not evidence. In a monolithic, elitist Left—one surely not as cohesive and close-minded as Mamet depicts, one more liable to agree with him on, say, the benefits of capitalism (albeit, perhaps, with more legal safeguards—he sees hypocrisy. Surely, community values and the unfettered marketplace of ideas are important to liberal and conservative alike. Sweetened with personal history, a couple good jokes and some pointed insights, Mamet's polemic yields no secret and scant knowledge. He does, nevertheless, raise the volume with incontestable dramatic talent.
A Manichean analysis from a strident new voice from the Right—for liberals, something intended to ignite antagonism; for the like-minded, a buttress against the opposition.
1 The Political Impulse 1
2 The American Reality 8
3 Culture, School Shootings, the Audience, and the Elevator 11
4 Alcatraz 21
5 Lost Horizon 29
6 The Music Man 34
7 Choice 38
8 The Red Sea 50
9 Chicago 53
10 Milton Friedman Explained 58
11 What is "Diversity"? 62
12 The Monty Hall Problem and the Contractor 65
13 Maxwell Street 71
14 R100 74
15 The Intelligent Person's Guide to Socialism and Anti-Semitism 80
16 The Victim 84
17 Puritans 88
18 The Noble Savage 91
19 Adventure Slumming 96
20 Cabinet Spiritualism and the Car Czar 100
21 Rumpelstiltskin 104
22 My Father, Al Sharpton, and the Designated Criminal 111
23 Greed 116
24 Arrested Development 123
25 Oakton Manor and Camp Kawaga 129
26 Feminism 134
27 The Ashkenazis 146
28 Some Personal History 156
29 The Family 164
30 Naturally Evolved Institutions 167
31 Breatharian 172
32 The Street Sweeper and the Surgeon, or Marxism Examined 177
33 Self-Evident Truth 190
34 Hope and Change 196
35 The Small Refrigerator 202
36 Bumper Stickers 206
37 Late Revelations 210
38 Who Does One Think He Is? 216
39 The Secret Knowledge 221
Acknowledgments 225
Bibliography 227
Index 233
cbiblioholic
Posted June 10, 2011
Wow! - What a powerful book. I have read many other books by new converts to conservatism but I think this book will really speak to liberals. It is beautifully written in a manner that will appeal to the liberal intelligentsia while at the same time preaching to the proverbial conservative choir. I could not put it down. A great gift for any open minded liberal. Welcome aboard Mr. Mamet!
12 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 20, 2011
Whether you are liberal or conservative, this is an essential read. Mamet does a brilliant job of demonstrating the foundations of his conservative conversion.
6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Edgarfield
Posted June 10, 2011
Was Mamet ever really a "liberal (th a small "l")? Mamet writes as if he were typical "first time" callled into the Rush Limbaugh show, proclaiming "I voted for Obama but now I am a rightwing conservative." Sure and I have some land in the Westbank that I want to sell you. His unique minimialist style and subject matters for his plays and movies are all conservative. His movie "Hoffa," for example, who was supporter of Richard Nixon, scourages Kennedy, both Robert and President Kennedy (one the Right's biggest whipping boys).
The book, while well a collection of stylistically well written essays, is a bit dated in history. Using Susan Sontag, as a typical liberal, undermines the main thrust of Mamet's view that liberalism has gone too far in recent years, since Sontag was a liberal critic of the sixties and has been dead for almost a decade.
The other aspect of Mamnet's view is a typical mistake between "liberalism" with a small "l" and "Liberalism" with a big "L." Mamet should not be blamed for this, as it is a typical error of modern neo-con philosophy. He contaminates Marxism with liberal and then with Democrat Party definitions, as if they were interchangeable which they are not. For a artist such as Mamet to abuse and misuse the language as he does in this collection of essays is a bit disturbing to me a reader.
Mamet's Randian philosophy thrives better in a uncontrolled Capitalist. Yet, he wants to have closed borders but open markets. Is America more open than it was 50 years ago. Yes. It is more liberal than it was. No more than it is today.
5 out of 26 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Lawrence_C
Posted June 20, 2011
I came to this book with apprehension, thinking that if anyone, Mamet could create a convincing argument for me to at least acknowledge the legitimacy of American conservatism.
He does not even make arguments - he simply pronounces sweeping generalizations, such as to the perverted schooling of his spoiled generation, "How to turn the nice middle-class boys and girls of my generation into the Killers or the Weathermen?" (there were, what, 9 active Weathermen out of a generation of 90,000,000?).
Similar to the curmudgeonly Tea Party, Mamet's belief in what good that government can do ends at his own comfy chair - roads and potable tap water are, undeniably, good; universal suffrage is, a priori, good. At such points he doesn't even offer any arguments as to why these creations of government and liberal ideology are good, he just assumes you will agree, and that is that.
If you believe that liberals worship Marx and Castro, that the Obama administration cunningly commandeered the auto industry and has now destroyed it, and that the size of your bank account demonstrates the strength of your soul... Well, you probably don't have to bother buying and reading this book either.
4 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.If you like Rush Limbaugh's book The Way Things Ought to be and See I told you so!, you will like this book of essays. Although the aithor asserts that he is a late comer to Conservatism, he must have worn his Liberal faith quite lightly judging by his past works such as Glengarry Ross. All I can say to Mamet is Welcome Aboard!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 14, 2011
Brilliantly rationale in presentation and refreshingly direct. This book opened my eyes to the incidious nature of left wing ideology and how it is destroying our culture.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 14, 2011
Fvbb
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 20, 2011
Eviscerates the liberal "thought" process. Mamet speaks from the perspective of a reformed liberal. His conversion was based on empirical evidence that he could no longer ignore.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.mjc64
Posted September 14, 2011
How does a life-long, typical, show-biz liberal come to embrace political conservatism? Mamet answers that question in a way that will have both conseratives and liberals shaking their heads, but in opposite directions. Fans of Mamet's plays, movies and such are in for a surprise, as Mr. Mamet's descriiption of his journey from one end of the political spectrum to the other is told in a fast paced, self-deprecating style that is neither too scholarly nor too pedestrian. Agree or disagree, an interesting read during this political season.
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Posted June 15, 2011
Must be something wrong with the Nook e-book sample...only 3-4 paragraphs (6-15-11). Can't tell enough about the book to buy it.
0 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 13, 2011
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Overview
David Mamet has been a controversial, defining force in nearly every creative endeavor-now he turns his attention to politics.In recent years, David Mamet realized that the so-called mainstream media outlets he relied on were irredeemably biased, peddling a hypocritical and deeply flawed worldview.
In 2008 Mamet wrote a hugely controversial op-ed for the Village Voice, Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'", in which he methodically attacked liberal beliefs, eviscerating them as efficiently as he did Method ...