andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-189 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Tyler Cowen links to an interesting article by Terry Teachout on David Mamet’s political conservatism. I don’t think of playwrights as gurus, but I do find it interesting to consider the political orientations of authors and celebrities . I have only one problem with Teachout’s thought-provoking article. He writes: As early as 2002 . . . Arguing that “the Western press [had] embraced antisemitism as the new black,” Mamet drew a sharp contrast between that trendy distaste for Jews and the harsh realities of daily life in Israel . . . In 2006, Mamet published a collection of essays called The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Jewish Self-Hatred and the Jews that made the point even more bluntly. “The Jewish State,” he wrote, “has offered the Arab world peace since 1948; it has received war, and slaughter, and the rhetoric of annihilation.” He went on to argue that secularized Jews who “reject their birthright of ‘connection to the Divine’” succumb in time to a self-hatred tha
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1 Tyler Cowen links to an interesting article by Terry Teachout on David Mamet’s political conservatism. [sent-1, score-0.102]
2 I don’t think of playwrights as gurus, but I do find it interesting to consider the political orientations of authors and celebrities . [sent-2, score-0.187]
3 Arguing that “the Western press [had] embraced antisemitism as the new black,” Mamet drew a sharp contrast between that trendy distaste for Jews and the harsh realities of daily life in Israel . [sent-7, score-0.57]
4 ” He went on to argue that secularized Jews who “reject their birthright of ‘connection to the Divine’” succumb in time to a self-hatred that renders them incapable of effectively opposing the murderous anti-Semitism of their enemies–and, by extension, the enemies of Israel. [sent-12, score-0.17]
5 It is hard to imagine a less fashionable way of framing the debate over Israel, and even the most sympathetic reviewers of The Wicked Son frequently responded with sniffish dismay to Mamet’s line of argument. [sent-13, score-0.406]
6 Setting aside the specific claims being made here (it would be hard for me to evaluate, for example, whether antisemitism was indeed “trendy” in 2002), I think Teachout made a mistake in his use of “trendy” and “fashionable. [sent-18, score-0.102]
7 Or, to put it another way, everything’s trendy until it jumps the shark. [sent-21, score-0.323]
8 ” “Trendy” and “fashionable” are convenient negative words that don’t add much meaning–they’re a way to express contempt without taking the trouble to make an actual argument. [sent-23, score-0.173]
9 My real trouble with the use of “fashionable” and “trendy” (and the accompanying implicit reasoning that goes along with them) is that they can get a writer tangled up in contradictions, without him even realizing it. [sent-25, score-0.138]
10 After praising him for his “less fashionable” framing of the debate over Israel, Teachout turns to Mamet’s latest play, which he does not actually like very much: “Alas, his first post-conversion play does not suggest that this new point of view has as yet borne interesting artistic fruit. [sent-27, score-0.365]
11 ” Teachout concludes his mini-review with the following sentence (parentheses in the original): (The play has, interestingly, proved to be a major success at the box office. [sent-28, score-0.111]
12 I can think of a few ways to interpret the parenthetical remark above: - Theatergoers–unlike playwrights–are sensible Americans, middle-of-the-road politically, and welcome a fresh new play that does not take a politically-correct view of the world. [sent-32, score-0.157]
13 This is a Hollywood-versus-America sort of argument and is consistent with the idea that we should trust the judgment of the market over that of a narrow spectrum of playwrights and critics. [sent-33, score-0.284]
14 - On the other hand, Teachout didn’t actually like the play, so maybe he’s making an opposite argument, that theatergoers are, essentially, nothing but sheep who flock to anything by a big-name playwright. [sent-34, score-0.102]
15 This is consistent with the idea that theaters can get away with all sorts of politically-correct crap and the audience won’t know the difference, thus a self-perpetuating mechanism that isolates theater away from the real life of America. [sent-35, score-0.213]
16 The judgment of the market is always a double-edged sword, and it’s never clear whether popularity should be taken as a sign of virtue (“the free-market economy,” in Mamet’s words) or as a deplorable sign of conformity (recall those oh-so-trendy words, “trendy” and “fashionable”). [sent-37, score-0.245]
17 Here’s another example from a few months ago, an article about demographic trends that, again, got tangled from a need (as I see it) to be both popular and unpopular at the same time–to have the perceived virtues of mass support while being an embattled underdog. [sent-45, score-0.126]
18 In the short term, perhaps we can all avoid the words “fashionable” and “trendy. [sent-46, score-0.149]
19 ” Or, if they must be used, please explain how to distinguish a positive trend in opinion (a “trend,” as it were) from a negative trend (which, of course, is just “trendy”). [sent-47, score-0.164]
20 It’s only because I found his article interesting that I took the trouble to comment on this one bit. [sent-51, score-0.168]
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Introduction: Tyler Cowen links to an interesting article by Terry Teachout on David Mamet’s political conservatism. I don’t think of playwrights as gurus, but I do find it interesting to consider the political orientations of authors and celebrities . I have only one problem with Teachout’s thought-provoking article. He writes: As early as 2002 . . . Arguing that “the Western press [had] embraced antisemitism as the new black,” Mamet drew a sharp contrast between that trendy distaste for Jews and the harsh realities of daily life in Israel . . . In 2006, Mamet published a collection of essays called The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Jewish Self-Hatred and the Jews that made the point even more bluntly. “The Jewish State,” he wrote, “has offered the Arab world peace since 1948; it has received war, and slaughter, and the rhetoric of annihilation.” He went on to argue that secularized Jews who “reject their birthright of ‘connection to the Divine’” succumb in time to a self-hatred tha
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Introduction: I read the following under the headline , Behind a Flop, a Play(wright) Within a Play”: A stroll down West 45th Street in the theater district is all it takes to understand the contradictory fortunes facing David Mamet, for years the heavyweight of bare-knuckled American playwrights, as well as the producers who believe that loyalty to the writer makes good business sense. At the Schoenfeld Theater is Mr. Mamet’s latest box-office hit: A revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning crowd-pleaser from 1984 about an office of desperately scheming salesmen. The producers are charging up to $377 a ticket simply on the drawing power of their star, Al Pacino, even before its official opening this weekend. My first thought was, Cool! Mamet wrote a new play called “A revival of ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’” with a play within a play. My second thought was, No way am I paying $377 a ticket for this. Too bad it’s not more reasonably priced. Then I read the article more ca
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