Garbanzo Toons

A Must Read

Others have already linked to it, most notably (because that's where I first linked from) American Digest, then Melanie Phillips. David Mamet, in the Village Voice, offers an essay he calls: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'. It's beautiful. It's concise and intelligent. I'm sure liberals and progressives hate it. Some of his story is also my story. I've read it twice so far.

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

I also read his book, The Wicked Son. It's kind of a polemic on Antisemitism and anti-Semitic Jews. It's not for everybody, but it was one of those books that I had to pick up and read immediately.

I once heard a conservative comedian on the radio tell the audience something to the effect that he used to be a liberal. Then he learned to read.

Once I was headed in that direction, reading Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, F. A. Hayak, Victor Hanson, Eric Hoffer, Robert Kaplan, and Daniel Boorstin helped clarify my thinking. But I'm still reading. I'm a slow learner.

As I was examining links to include in this post, I came upon this one, in which a liberal reviewer laments Mamet's change and wonders if his writing will suffer because of it. Of course we know that talent is function of one's liberalality and that the amount of talent one has is directly proportional to how progressive one is. What a dope. I'm betting that Mamet's change in thought will change the thoughts of this and other reviewers.

Labels: American Digest, books, David Mamet, Melanie Phillips, The Wicked Son

posted by Harry @ 9:29 PM