'Far Right' Playwright David Mamet Gets Testy Treatment from NY Times Magazine
Acclaimed playwright David Mamet is featured in the New York Times Sunday magazine’s "Talk" feature (formerly "Q&A") on the eve of the publication of "The Secret Knowledge," his dramatic intellectual break with the political left.
Early reviews suggest Mamet’s message is bracing, and the left has responded in kind with vicious cries of sellout. Perhaps that’s why Andrew Goldman’s Q&A with Mamet is testier than his previous interviews (he replaced the liberal Deborah Solomon in the magazine’s Q&A slot in March). Even the subhead was slanted and hostile: "David Mamet explains his intellectual shift to the right. The far right."
A few of Goldman’s challenging questions (in bold) and Mamet's answers (in normal type):
Years ago, you described "American Buffalo" as being about "how we excuse all sorts of great and small betrayals and ethical compromises called business." In this book, you defend enormous payouts to C.E.O.’s working for failing corporations. You seem to have changed radically.
I have. Here’s the question: Is it absurd for a company to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to a C.E.O. if the company is failing? The answer is that it may or may not be absurd, but it’s none of our goddamned business. Because as Milton Friedman said, the question is not what are the decisions but who makes the decisions. Because when the government starts deciding what’s absurd, you’re on the road to serfdom.
....
You wrote that Karl Marx "never worked a day in his life." But how is his writing "Das Kapital" fundamentally different from the way you make a living? You realize you’re not a plumber, right?
Jesus Christ. Listen, here’s the thing about an English degree -- if you sat somebody down and asked them to make a list of the writers they admire over the last hundred years, see how many of them got a degree in English.
Sometimes in the book I thought you were just trying to anger some of your liberal friends, like when you wrote the West sees the Middle East conflict as "entertainment."
No, I think that it’s true. There has always been a different standard for the Jews. We’re like "honorary Aryans," as Hitler said of the Japanese. That means that we’re human beings only when it suits the world to treat us as human beings. There’s a pretty good book on the subject -- the Torah.
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Comments
The NYT changed the title...
Submitted by WhoIsJohnGalt on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 12:09pm.
"...the Far Right" is no longer there, at least on the on-line version.
Mamet Will Have to be Demonized
Submitted by Comrade Jim on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 12:50pm.
Just as everyone opposing the left is demonized when they begin to become effective.
I loved House of Games and
Submitted by balboa on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 2:06pm.
I loved House of Games and State and Main. Fun stuff.
Besides intellect, what makes
Submitted by stratman on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 2:06pm.
Besides intellect, what makes people like Mamet, Andrew Brietbart and David Horowitz so potent against and frightening to the Left is that they were previously one of the Left. These men not only understand what the Left is about but also their tactics are and how to use it against them like Ju-Juitso, where one uses their opponent's moves against them.
The Unit
Submitted by Eagle101 on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 2:15pm.
Was one of the best shows on TV. It was axed mainly because of politics.
People on the left consider
Submitted by redfish on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 2:32pm.
People on the left consider ordinary conservatives as "far right" because they feel entitled to their views -- since they're shared by academia, and what was once mainstream journalism. They believe everything they were taught was mainstream belief.
I doubt
Submitted by megapotamus on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 3:04pm.
quoting Milton Friedman is going to get Mamet anywhere with the audience. Maybe one or two will Google it.
%*#! me, no %*#! you.
Submitted by Jack Bauer on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 1:53pm.
In this book, you defend enormous payouts to C.E.O.’s working for failing corporations.
Yeah, even the liberal whores who run the corporation called the New York Times... which employs drones like Goldman
As a conservative, I loved Mamet's work, even when was supposedly a leftist.
All of the above Mr Obama? --- How about ALL OF THE BELOW, instead.