David Mamet resolves dissonance
David Mamet
A couple of weeks ago David Mamet, prolific author, screen writer, director, and playwright, wrote an essay in The Village Voice about his conversion from a “brain-dead liberal” to a sort of conservative. After a lifetime of running with the far-left Hollywood crowd and promoting their brand of liberalism, Mamet slowly began to realize that life as he actually experienced it conflicted with his political beliefs creating major cognitive dissonance.
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the f**k up. “?” she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as “a brain-dead liberal,” and to NPR as “National Palestinian Radio.”
This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.
But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.
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.
As discussed in Mistakes Were Made, it’s difficult to hold two opposing beliefs, and most people try to resolve their dissonance by explaining away anything that conflicts with their predominant belief. It is extremely difficult and therefore unusual when someone renounces an entrenched set of beliefs held for a lifetime, and especially when done as Mamet did in such a public way.
People generally start out with no real political ideology. As the authors of Mistakes Were Made would put it, people start at the top of a pyramid of belief. Something tips them one way or another and they head down a particular path. As they build up speed heading toward the base of the pyramid confirmation bias kicks in and speeds them along their way. They tend to associate with people who believe the same as they; they read editorialists who confirm their own beliefs; they troll the blogs, read the books, listen to the talk radio programs and watch opinion TV shows that are congruent with their own beliefs. By the time they get to the bottom of the opinion pyramid, they can’t conceive of anyone holding a different opinion. They may have a friend or sibling who traveled down the opposite side of the pyramid and holds opposing views that have been seasoned by marinating in another type of confirmation bias, and this friend or sibling is regarded as, at best, misguided, at worst, stupid or evil. And this friend or sibling feels the same about them.
It is most difficult to spend the time wallowing in confirmation bias for years and reaching the bottom of the pyramid only to find that your entrenched opinions conflict with your observations. Most people try to make sense of their observations by interpreting them in such a way to be compatible with their beliefs. It takes a strong person to be able to step up and say I can’t reconcile what I see with what I believe, so I need to change my beliefs to conform with what I see instead of vice verse. And to do it publicly as Mamet has done takes a lot of gumption. I’ve got to take my hat off to him.
I found not only that I didn’t trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.
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.
And I began to question my hatred for “the Corporations”—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.
I decided a while back to leave politics off this blog, and when I first read this piece it didn’t occur to me to post about it. But then I got to thinking about it in terms Mistakes Were Made, and I realized how difficult it is to make a giant switch over as Mamet has done, and make it so publicly. I thought it would be illustrative of the steps someone goes through to make such a switch, and since most of the world doesn’t read The Village Voice, I figured I would put it up for all to read.
I suspect that most of us have gone through a similar process in making the conversion to low-carb from low-fat. We’ve had to overcome the disbelief of friends and family that we could possible do something so stupid and dangerous as go on a low-carb diet. But we saw the results, and we were able to believe more in what we saw and experienced than in what we believed to be true, so we went with reality. Our friends haven’t made the leap and they all regard our dietary decisions in much the same way that the Hollywood crown must regard Mamet’s.
I don’t necessarily hold Mamet’s political views, but I do enjoy a lot of his writing. I especially enjoyed Bambi verses Godzilla, his book on the movie business, which is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. It is great reading for anyone wanting a critical insider’s view of what goes on in the making of motion pictures. Plus it gives a lot of tips on old movies, many of which MD and I have rented and enjoyed.
I’ll be happy to put up any comments that come through on this post, but I’m not going to engage in political debate. As I said, this was Mamet’s conversion, not mine. I’m simply posting it to show how someone goes through the thought processes to overcome a long-held point of view. If you want to argue about Mamet’s reasoning, write Mamet and argue with him, not me.
What is it about privileged white males that they come off as such babies?
“As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.”
Really? As a subteen around the same time as he took the above as “an article of faith” , I certainly developed a much more nuanced view thanks to the liberal Irish nuns responsible for my moral and political upbringing. Faith they left to a concept called god, the rest they constantly told us, was entirely in our hands. A tougher bunch of instructors I have yet to meet when it came to what we were held personally responsible. To this day, I find protestant white male preachers(and other male “authorities”) can’t hold a candle next to those women.
Governments are as corrupt as their citizens let them be–it is the moral obligation of the citizenry to fix what’s wrong. In a democracy such as ours, it’s currently taking place in the unprecedented numbers of young voters coming out to vote in the democratic primaries–that’s just one example. A business, big or small, is an amoral, nonhuman entity which, once again, must be altered and influenced by the customer and stockholder. It’s called taking responsibility as opposed to falling into passivity and fatalism.
As a person who belongs to two cultures and deals with at least eight different others on a daily basis, I am able to say that good and evil are relative terms and that some people are not good at all in an Enlightenment sense. That is, they don’t believe that all humans are created equal, that opportunity belongs to everyone, that civic duty is a responsibility that applies to them–fatalism is the default position for everything. Which is just another way of saying; let somebody else do something about it.
Really, this is not an exageration–I deal with first generation immigrant business owners who think that the US of A happened by magic. You want cognitive dissonance? Try having a conversation with someone who has no idea that the Founding Fathers, students of the Enlightenment, are responsible for the success of his life here by having written a document that makes his life fundamentally different from the culture he had to leave. Anybody who wants to believe that people are generally good at heart, hasn’t been talking to real live people.
I have been a liberal since grade school, and will always be one. It is a CHOICE that must be upheld by review and perspective, by involvement. I suggest that Mamet get off his overprivileged, white male posterior, spend some time comtemplating his own lazy-ass fatalism and find out what real liberals are doing today. Brain-dead indeed!
I am just guessing, but I imagine you think we are doomed because our behavior is dictated by our primary role as gene carriers?
Not at all. Something VERY interesting happened when the evolutionary tree of primate “survival machines” (as Dawkins puts it), yielded a self-aware entity. We, probably alone as creatures on this planet, can discover enough of the information as to what, at base, is actually going on (reality), to realize that the former “servant” can now become the “master”. We can decide ( and have, actually) to NOT just be automatic mechanisms for the distribution of the “selfish” genes. What we experience as our own consciousness, is now the primary thing. And we want it to continue, genes be damned.
Nevertheless, despite what we “want”, the Cosmos doesn’t “care” about us, and is, in fact, a very scary place, for “life”. Hence, the “pessimism”. It doesn’t have to “all work out”, for us. Among other danges, IF we’re lucky, we’ll be able to save the planet from the next world-busting asteroid hit, but that is not certain.
Meanwhile, we might as well make the best of it. Live, and let live. Be good to each other, etc. I’m certainly trying to.
Best,
John
Doc, I sure hope you keep this blog on-topic and don’t let it devolve into just another of the zillion joints on the net where dorks compete over how well-read they are.
I think that issues involving cognitive dissonance and the confirmation bias are on topic as they help explain the seemingly inexplicable: how people can cling to the notion that low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets are healthful.
No worries, Sam. I’m done commenting on this thread, and on that subject. But I have to take a little umbrage that you think me a “dork” who wants to show “how well-read” I am. You don’t know me. I quote others to give them credit, not to show I am well-read. I don’t like taking credit ( or even implying it) for an idea that is not original with me. I realize that this can be misinterpreted, and can be tedious to read, but I see it as the lesser of two evils.
Best,
John
Nice posting, fun comments, love your books and blogs.
One teensy quibble: since Mamet is a man of the theater, I doubt very much that he had any trouble whatsoever sharing his conversion experience with the public. I think David Mamet is *eager* to share just about anything that occurs to him with the public!
Interesting. I have nothing worthwhile to contribute to this discussion other than to say I agree with Mamet’s characterization of NPR. I stopped listening for the same reason.
Totally unrelated, but every time I try to access past blogs it just keeps kicking me to the latest page.
I’m trying to get the blog fixed so that the archives can be accessed, but so far no one has been able to figure out exactly what the problem is.
Thanks for the post. LOL – I can relate because I was also a “brain-dead” liberal for while and moved to what I consider to be a more moderate political position. My husband and I can no longer listen to NPR. We find ourselves frustrated on topics we have some knowledge of, such as nutrition.
For instance, my husband caught himself yelling at the radio when a proposal was brought forth and seriously discussed how the state should be spending money on educating pre-schoolers to stop the spread of child obesity. If you’ve met any actual pre-schoolers *grin*, I think you’re perfectly aware that their parents control what they eat. You can spend a day “educating” them and if you offer them a chips and cupcake for a meal the next day, they’d be eating that. I’m not against nutrition education, it was frustration at the idea that educating 4 year olds who pretty much have to eat what’s presented is going to have a serious impact on childhood obesity.
Anyway, I agree that this is on topic as choosing low carb even today is much like converting from “good hearted liberal” (ie low fat and/or vegetarian) to the “evil conservatives” (ie a protein/meat based diet). All I know is that I tend to in social circles minimize discussions of my diet to avoid controversy in a diverse group. Low carb discussions seem to produce anger that I can only explain as “religious zeal”.
You’re only following a low-carb diet and you get grief in social circles. Imagine what I have to endure being a major public proponent of such diets.
You’re only following a low-carb diet and you get grief in social circles. Imagine what I have to endure being a major public proponent of such diets.
I can imagine and believe me, every public proponent of low carb has my sincerest graditude.
Personally I wish I could do more to help spread the word but doing more than I do now (educating myself and few interested ears) means losing focus both on my work and my children, whom I homeschool.
As an aside, I’ve experienced an occasional response that when you are out of the mainstream that somehow it’s enjoyable, cool, or easy “to be a rebel”. I’ve often thought that people who have that response have never been in a position of opposition of the mainstream. Those who have done it on any level knows being out of the “mainstream” means extra work, awkward social situations, and being at odds with good people you count as friends. In other words, it taint no fun and I don’t think any sane person would choose it unless there was something important on the line.
So thanks to you and others like you. I’ve seen just a small slice of what you put up with and I’m grateful for the sacrifice. There is no greater gift than the restoration of health. Without low carb I’d be the depressed, overweight, mess of a no energy mother I was a few years ago. (Now I’m a high energy mess of a mother.
) Keep up the great work and thanks again.
At least one quote in this article is on the right track.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/26/belly.dementia.ap/index.html
John
I just finished reading the study in Neurology that your article is about. Pretty interesting. I’ve long thought and Alzhiemer’s is nothing but diabetes of the brain.
It’s not exactly dissonance, but it’s more bad science: Now we’re supposed to believe belly fat causes dementia. Preposterous. If anything, they have the same root cause, mostly likely chronically elevated insulin / high blood sugar.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1313537/belly_fat_linked_to_an_increased_risk_of_dementia/index.html?source=r_health
I’m beginning to think Richard Stein — who says this can all be prevented with a lowfat diet — is one of the worst scientists around. Mistakes were made, but not by him.
Jesus wept.
Mike: “I’ve long thought and Alzhiemer’s is nothing but diabetes of the brain.”
That’s exactly what Peter on the HyperLipid (high-fat) blog has argued. In fact, he has called Alzheimer’s Disease “type three diabetes.” Do you think that name will catch on? :^)
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2007/12/memes-and-g.html
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2006/10/now-alzheimers-disease.html
I suspect that in time the idea will catch on although I don’t know if the name will.
Actually, I just found some articles mentioning “type three diabetes” and Google gives a lot of hits for “type 3 diabetes.” Try searching for “type-3-diabetes OR type-three-diabetes” (remove the quotes). I get almost 14,000 hits for that. Only 22 for “type three diabetes” by itself. Here are some articles mentioning the theory that Alzheimer’s is caused by insulin resistance in the brain. This theory really seems to be picking up steam.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/27/scidem127.xml
http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2582
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0001969/53/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4315609.stm