The Secret Knowledge

by David Mamet

  His tactics involved picketing the homes of directors of institutions whose practices he and his organization found uncongenial, clogging the floors of a department store with nonbuyers who would, at the end of the day, place orders COD for purchases they had no intention of accepting, and so on.

  I take these examples from his own book Rules for Radicals (1971). Also to be found in his book is his threat, to the City of Chicago, of “a shit-in”—a clogging of all lavatories onboard planes and in the concourses of O’Hare Airport: “It would be a source of great mortification and embarrassment to the city administration. It might even create the kind of emergency in which planes would have to be held up while passengers got back aboard to use the plane’s toilet facilities.”

  What did he hope to gain? Power.

  Here is this Twelfth Rule of Power Tactics: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” (Italics his.) “You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand, and saying ‘you’re right—we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now tell us.’ ”

  A “community organizer,” then, is one who seeks power. To do what? Whatever he wants. In the service of whom? Of those he designates as “within his community.” He may (Alinsky and his cohorts did) seek to force banks to issue mortgages to those unable to pay—his community being the recipients of these “low income mortgages.” But in forcing the banks to risk and waste the money of their depositors, he was, finally, not “bringing about social justice,” but rationing poverty.

  Who did he think he was? He thought he was a fellow who had learned a good trick. And he used it to further what he called “his ideals” but which might at least as accurately be characterized as his “agenda”—for who can know, finally, what were his ideals? Perhaps he just liked causing disruption. Indeed, there is no doubt about it. “It should be remembered that you can threaten the enemy and get away with it. You can insult and annoy him, but the one thing that is unforgiveable and that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes an irrational anger.” (Ibid.)

  So, “the enemy’s” anger is “irrational,” but Alinsky’s furor over “social injustice” is somehow brave and laudable.

  Hard cases make Bad Law; and hard situations make bad precedent.

  That the Freedom Marchers succeeded in the passage of the Civil Rights Act is moot. That they succeeded in changing the nature of our country is undeniable.

  Dr. King, the SCLC, and the host of organizations and individuals who risked their lives changed America vastly for the better.

  One legacy of their bravery is a penchant, among the well-meaning, to “do good,” “march for,” and so on, in supposed aid of causes whose worth may be questionable, and whose goals impossible—an example of the first, opponents of Global Warming, and of the second, World Peace.

  These well-meaning citizens and celebrities do not risk the maiming and death risked by Freedom marchers, they risk nothing—merely aggrandizing their own self-image, and rewarding themselves for engaging in actions which as they may be superficially like those of the Freedom Marchers, can be felt as deserving of merit.

  Environmentalists have stopped water to the Central Valley of California, as the flow endangered, they said, some fish. And they got a judge to agree with them. Is this just? To whom? To some fish? To the farmer? Finally, it may or may not be just, but it is grateful to the self-image of the judge.

  How wonderful to think of ourselves as heroes, and how often is such a fantasy the result of a feeling of powerlessness. The Left offers the ever-attractive suggestion that one, knowing himself to be (like you and me) a biddable, often confused, flawed human being, may rise above his knowledge by merely announcing his capacity for Herohood.

  Candidate Obama said “Selma belongs to me, too.” Well, the benefits do (as they accrue to us all), and, certainly, the pride-o-frace does—as might also the pride of country, patriotism, for being a citizen of a country whose citizens displayed such heroism—but the credit does not.

  Neither does credit accrue to those espousing whatever causes, who risk nothing in their prosecution; and for the inspired to indulge in extralegal or borderline actions of either civil disobedience or judicial activism is to seek credit for breaking laws whose transgression (in contrast to those at Selma) cost them nothing. Such is a cost-free exercise in self-aggrandizement similar to my “nostalgia” for not having served—it is arrogation of that which belongs to another. This is the essence of the philosophy of the Left.

  We may be inspired to break the laws, discard the customs, and to destroy the culture which allowed us the freedom and leisure to so engage ourselves; and I, growing up in the sixties, thought it a grand idea: to bring about Social Justice.

  That such actions, whatever their supposed intention, caused havoc and that we who espoused them were responsible for the same, was to me a difficult perception. It still is.

  The embrace of Conservatism, my own, and that of anyone coming to it in maturity, necessitates a deep and rigorous survey and evaluation of thoughts and actions, and their honest assessment.

  The ability to honestly assess actions and consequences (morality) is not limited to Conservatives, nor are we as individuals more likely than Liberals to make such decisions—save in the political realm.

  Given a perception that the greater possibility of happiness for the greatest number lies in Conservative rather than Liberal principles, why is the transition to the first from the second difficult?

  One may reason (as I, and many readers have) with honest, intelligent, moral Liberal friends, who may, in one instance after another, grant the validity of one’s Conservative theses, and acknowledge the discrepancy between their own actions, and their voting habits, but yet not only vote Democratic, but proclaim that nothing on earth could induce them to do otherwise. Why?

  It means leaving the group.

  It is not difficult to endure, but it is painful to recognize the incredulity and scorn which one encounters from one’s native Group (the Liberals) on announcing a change of philosophy. It is shocking. And it is sobering, for it reveals this truth: that the Left functions, primarily, through its power as a primitive society or religion, dedicated above all to solidarity, and not only to acceptance but to constant promulgation of its principles, however inchoate, as “self-evident” and therefore beyond question. But, as Hayek points out, that something is beyond question most often means that its investigation has been forbidden. Why? Because it was untrue.

  How does the Left draw and maintain its unthinking allegiance from people of intelligence, compassion, and goodwill? By offering an illusion. Here is Whittaker Chambers, speaking of the Communism from which he wrenched himself in the 1940s: “Its vision points the way to the future: its faith labors to turn the future into present reality. It says to every man who joins it: the vision is a practical problem of history; the way to achieve it is a practical problem in politics, which is the present tense of history. Have you the moral strength to take upon yourself the crimes of history so that man at last may close his chronicle of age-old senseless suffering, and replace it with a purpose and a plan? . . . The answer is the root of that sense of moral superiority which makes Communists, though caught in crime, berate their opponents with withering self-righteousness.”106

  We human beings need order. We crave it, and we thrive under it.

  How do we adjudicate between our need for order and our need for freedom (for the Left offers only the first)?

  By realizing that this determination must be made, and that it can never be made perfectly; and through sufficient maturity to accept the burden of choice rather than submit to the comfort of the Group.

  38

  WHO DOES ONE THINK HE IS?

  “An’ I was thinking, Hinnissy” (Mr. Dooley said in conclusion), “as I set in that there coort, surrounded be me fellow-journalists, spies, perjurers, an’ other statesmen, that I’d give four dollars if th’ prisident i
v th’ coort’d call out “Monsoo Dooley, take th’ stand.’

  “ ‘ Here,’ says I; an I’d thread me way with dignity through th’ Fr’rinch gin’rals an’ ministers on th’ flure, an’ give me hand to th’ prisident to kiss. If he went anny further, I’d break his head. No man’ll kiss me, Hinnissy, an’ live. What’s that ye say? He wudden’t want to? Well, niver mind.

  “ ‘ Here,’ ” says I, ‘ mong colonel, what d’ye want with me?’

  “ ‘ What d’ye know about this case, mong bar-tinder.’

  “ ’Nawthin’,’ says I. ‘But I know as much as annywan else.’ ”

  —Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley in the

  Hearts of His Countrymen

  I am a guy who got his nose broke playing high school football.

  I remember very well what it is to look for work. It is my experience that being self-supporting is like shooting free throws: if you hit, you get to shoot again, if not, not.

  I believe, like Coach Lombardi, that every man wants to test himself, and is never happier than when he “lays on the field of battle, exhausted, and victorious.”

  The Chicago literary tradition is born not out of its Universities, but out of the sports desk and the city desk of its newspapers. Hemingway revolutionized English prose. His inspiration was the telegraph, whose use, at Western Union, taught this: every word costs something.

  This, of course, is the essence of poetry, which is the essence of great prose. Chicagoan literature came from the newspaper, whose purpose, in those days, was to Tell What Happened. Hemingway’s epiphany was reported, earlier, by Keats as “ ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” I would add, to Keats’s summation only this: “Don’t let the other fellow piss on your back and tell you it’s raining.”

  I believe one might theoretically forgive one who cheats at business, but never one who cheats at cards; for business adversaries operate at arm’s length, the cardplayer under the assumption that his position will be conducted under the strict rules of the game, period.

  That was my first political epiphany.

  And now, I have written a political book.

  What are the qualifications for a Political Writer?

  They are, I believe, the same as those of an aspiring critic: an inability to write for the Sports Page.

  I was born in Hyde Park and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. I hold no brief against someone who is not interested in sports, but I could never trust someone who claimed such an interest, in order to advance his own agenda, and then could neither name a member, past or present, of his self-apostrophised “Home Team,” nor correctly pronounce the name of their ballpark.107

  I can forgive someone who lies, but if he can’t think on his feet, he has no business representing my interests. If he can’t lie to me, how can I expect him to lie, on my behalf, to the other guy?

  I have written a political book not because I am an expert but because I am a citizen. I have published a political book because other citizens wrote a Constitution denying to our Government the power to control Speech.

  I am the beneficiary of those who lived and died to defend our Constitution. I need no permission to publish my work—only the endorsement of another citizen or group who believe they may, financially or otherwise, profit from its publication.

  For many, what may be accepted as common sense is only that which comes out of the mouths of experts. But Harry Truman said the smartest man is the farmer, for, while he works all day, he’s thinking.

  I would add that the smartest man is the immigrant, for he has to assess each situation afresh, and mechanically. Which is to say he starts with no misconceptions, and so is very difficult to misdirect—his ability to eat depends upon his ability to figure out the way things work.

  Things work in ways both wonderful and stunning, when set next to the way we think they work.108

  The gap between the two grows naturally, through use and elaboration. It is capable of misuse by those who can profit from it: the politician who would like more patronage money to dispense, the entrepreneur who is selling snake oil, and the investment banker who may be his brother.

  What is the difference between equality and fairness? A standard may be applied to the former, which the latter will not bear. The cry for “fairness” is the child’s cry. It is, indeed, the first sentence dealing with the abstract which the child speaks, “It’s not fair.”

  “Fair,” then, may mean “What I want,” or, in the altruist, “The way I believe the world should be,” but it is, finally, subjective; and an insistence on this subjective standard opens the way both for evil in the name of good (busing), and for the unprincipled exploiters of any system, (Lenin, Mao, or their contemporaries of various ranks and denominations).

  Equality can only, practically, mean, equality before the law—this is to say that everybody gets his turn to be heard out by a judicial system which, in the way of the world, is overworked, and indifferent, and may be misguided, or indeed, corrupt.

  The question is, “Whom would I want on the jury trying me?” The answer, “Persons like myself,” brings us down to the Courthouse when it is our turn to serve, with personal and civic pride counterbalancing the inconvenience.

  You and I would want, on a jury tying our case, not the expert, not the hypothetical or overeducated, but the plumber, the grocer, the carpet salesman, the firefighter, the Marine—a regular person just like you or me.

  For our case, were it, God forbid, before a court, would be, in our estimation simple, and we would want our jurors wary of abstractions—capable of and experienced in differentiating between simple things: the debt was paid, the debt was not paid; he struck me first; he promised X and did Y. These are the things the average, undeluded, and undeludable worker deals with every day, the things with which we deal when we recall (should we forget) that we are workers.

  The awe and majesty of the Law are our basic inheritance of freedom. Without these nothing can exist in Freedom: here is the bright line, stay to the correct side and the community will protect you, venture across, and you will be at the mercy of its other name, the State. Likewise, those we call “leaders,” were originally understood to function as representatives, with one to preside over their deliberations.

  The imperial Presidency is a bore. No one is perfect, and no man can know or understand all things.

  On the movie set, there is one person and one person only who need possess no quantifiable skills, that is the director. The actor must be able to act, the designer to design, the carpenter to build; the director need be conversant with the technicalities of none of these; his job is to move the project forward, allowing each of the workers involved to do his own job. That of the director is to listen to their suggestions, to propose a course of action, and to bring the entirety, happily and simply, to a shared devotion to that course.

  The rules of behavior on a movie set are largely the Unwritten Law: who shows deference to whom, when one should speak, when one should be silent, how to deal with unpleasantness, with an excess of zeal, with shoddy work; how to evaluate that which falls short of the perfect. The set is infused with a sense of commonality and dedication not only to the project at hand, but to training by example the new workers, by extending and protecting the precious lessons of the past.

  This perception was the beginning of my love affair, or, let me say, my recognition of my love affair with America. We do things differently here. We were and are a country of workers and, as such, get along so well that we became the preeminent power in the world. This came about not through a “lust for power,” not through colonialism or “exploitation,” but as a result of our ethos and cohesion. It begins with the notion that all are created equal.

  The definition of “all” has widened over time; and the history of our country, when finally written, will appreciate that this widening was the essence of our Republic; that we, in the process of devotion to the essentially religio
us goal, the “self-evident truth,” managed to shape, through our Industry and through our art, a new and better world.

  39

  THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE

  The Left is atheist, and, simply because it is atheist, its religious fanaticism is worse than any of the other fanaticisms of history. For the romantic of the past has sometimes, if all too rarely, been restrained by the memory that God is Truth. But the atheist fanatic has no reason for such restraint. There is no reason in principle why the revolutionary atheist should regard truth, and it does not seem that he does so in practice.

  —Christopher Hollis, Foreigners Aren’t Fools, 1936

  America is a Christian country. Its Constitution is the distillation of the wisdom and experience of Christian men, in a tradition whose codification is the Bible.

  I will not say this Christian country has been good to the Jews, for this suggests an altruism or acceptance, neither of which exist. But America has been good for the Jews, as it has been, eventually, good for every immigrant group whether fleeing oppression, seeking prosperity, or, indeed, brought here in chains. The result of a 230-year-long experiment is the triumph of Judaeo-Christian values. We have created peace and plenty for more citizens over a greater period of time than that enjoyed by any other group in history.

  This triumph is not due to altruism, nor to empathy, nor to compassion, but to adherence to those practicable, rational rules for successful human interaction set out in the Bible.

  These rules and precepts amount, in their totality, as much to a legal philosophy as to a theology.

  Practically, they assert the existence of God not as a magical force, making all men good (all men are not good), but as the a priori condition of human interaction: accountability. This irreducible understanding, which is the basis of Judaeo-Christian civilization, is that all human beings possess both a conscience and that free will necessary to allow them to either reject its dictates or to formulate them into habit. It is the codification of this conscience as Law, which allows us to adjudicate between both its conflicting claims, and its absence or presence in differing individuals.