David Mamet shocked and angered the liberal Hollywood/Broadway writing establishment when he converted from a "brain-dead liberal" to an ardent conservative. An op-ed by Mamet published in 2008 in the Village Voice, described, unashamedly, why and how he abandoned his liberal ideology for conservatism. Mamet admits that, while he thought and spoke like a liberal, he lived like a conservative; creating a product, marketing and selling it, and thus, becoming successful, in a free-market/capitalist system.
Mamet's bestselling book, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, is a probing and conscientious exposition of his personal journey from the Left to the Right side of political thought and action. He has divided this trek into concise yet penetrating chapters beginning with "The Political Impulse." This chapter is a delineation of the evolving social and personal conditions that caused him to question his own liberalism-the absence of logic in the rhetoric and actions of the Left; for example, the Democrat Party's willingness to give the benefit-of-the-doubt to Islamic terrorists while falsely accusing Israel of atrocities that never happened.
David Mamet is a giant the American stage and the movie screen. He won a Pulitzer prize for his play Glengarry Glen Ross, which was later produced as an independent film. His other credits include The Untouchables, Speed the Plow, and American Buffalo. It was through the process of writing a political play, and the subsequent backlash from critics on the Left because it was not "liberal" enough, that Mamet came to the realization that the liberalism he had embraced for decades was not about compassion and justice, but rather power and control.
The Secret Knowledge is a paean to America. It is also an indictment of the addiction to liberalism by popular culture, and the artists and politicians who pretend to embrace individuality and personal freedom. Mamet exposes them as living in absolute conformity to a set of liberal rules and groupthink, and despising freedom when others are free to think thoughts that are different than theirs.
Article comments
1 - Dr Joseph S Maresca
The custodians of American culture are the American people themselves. From the keepers of ancient colonial furniture to Shawnee Indian artifacts to the letters of the noted writer Frederick Douglass to existing models of the Wright Brothers etc, all are a part of preserving American culture for posterity.