[lit-ideas] Re: David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:26:26 -0500
ey:
Wow, Mike, that was an choleric response.
: ) Sorry, didn't realize I was being choleric. In fact, I had edited
the original post bringing to it, I thought, some niceness. I guess I must
be getting thin-skinned about having ex-liberals shoved in my face as
evidence that liberalism is all wrong. What I've read and seen of Mamet's
work is intriguing and powerful, but that doesn't make him right any more so
than Eliot and Pound's poetry does them.
I thought you'd pounce on this paragraph:
"Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in
Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy
left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied
about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book
written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with
the Mafia. Oh."
Actually, I agree with Mamet here. To me that doesn't mean that liberalism
is bankrupt (or conservatism for that matter), it means that the apparatus
of governance must be vigilant against corruption, especially at the highest
levels where the greatest damage can be done. Liberalism as a theory of
governance doesn't believe in the perfectibility of human beings as Lawrence
seems to believe it does, on the contrary, it recognizes that all of us are
self-seeking and corruptible and ever will be and therefore our enterprises
require rigorous accountability and regulation -- the bogeymen of
conservatism. That we will always fall short of the mark is no reason to
lower the mark. The fact that we'll never know everything doesn't make
learning a waste of time. Knowing you're going to die doesn't make life
meaningless. Will a perfectly just and equitable society will ever be
created? No, of course not. That fact doesn't mitigate the need to work
towards it, nor make it a fool's venture. It makes it that much more
important.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 1:20 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead
Liberal'
.* It's just an essay about a
guy changing his mind. You'd enjoy the full-text version, which has more
literary examples of mind changing. Mailer on Godot is funny.
You are as surprising as you are passionate. I thought you'd pounce on
this paragraph:
"Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in
Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy
left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied
about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book
written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with
the Mafia. Oh."
Instead you chose to engage his "free-market" stuff. Poetry ... I too
dislike it.
Best to all,
Eric
____
*
Reacting to Mamet, Mike cites, "greed ... hate(d) ... wallow in his
justification of injustice ... neon screaming stretches of the coin-op
culture ... them who can stand the stink kiss the asses of country
clubbers."
Describing his preferences, Mike writes, "I prefer to work towards a just
society. ... I prefer to dance with the winos."
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