The Secret Knowledge

by David Mamet

  The laws, derived from the Bible, and finding their most demonstrably perfect form in the Constitution, assert not man’s perfection, but his imperfectibility, and, thus, the inevitability of conflict.

  Our Judaeo-Christian teachings acknowledge conflict (between individuals, between them and the State, between them and God) and proceed to suggest (through narrative in the Old and through parable in the New Testament) mechanisms for its most peaceful resolution.

  This tradition does not refer, overtly or by implication, to any possible perfect state of Man or of his associations, but, rather, acknowledges his weakness both before his imperfections and before that Power, however named, which gave him both a conscience, and the desire for law.

  This power may be understood as metaphysical, and called God, or as a mere cosmic accident, gifting the human species with a unique formation of intellect impelling them to create Law as the most obviously utilitarian path toward effective civilization.

  The Bible is an acknowledgment of human individuality. Human society has thrived, historically, as we see in our diverse society, because of the liberty to exploit a random distribution of talents, flaws, and proclivities.

  Those States which have, in the name of productivity, racial purity, or, indeed, equality, attempted to limit human individuality have reverted from the civilization of the Judaeo-Christian state to savagery; for they have rejected the teachings of the Bible. One need not even say they died because they rejected God; they died because they rejected reason.

  There is no secret knowledge. The Federal Government is merely the zoning board writ large.

  One may find, in either place, able and even dedicated public servants, but there are no beneficent “experts.” For such an expert must be, essentially, but a skilled manipulator of people (the electorate or the legislature). He must be, therefore, a politician (that is, a perpetual candidate), bureaucrat, or demagogue; or he may be a lobbyist or a theoretician, skilled in manipulating or conspiring with the other named groups.

  Our jury trial admits the testimony of experts. But the jury, faced with each side’s expert but opposed opinion, usually discards both, judging the experts suborned or misled by either their stipend or their theories. They then retire to their deliberations, realizing that, though each side’s evidence is presented as beyond the power of the common individual’s understanding, they, the jury, are going to have to figure it out for themselves.

  So it is with the rest of our self-government. The problems facing us, faced by all mankind engaged in Democracy, may seem complex, or indeed insolvable, and we, in despair, may revert to a state of wish-fulfillment—a state of “belief” in the power of the various experts presenting themselves as a cure for our indecision. But this is a sort of Stockholm syndrome. Here, the captives, unable to bear the anxiety occasioned by their powerlessness, suppress it by identifying with their captors.

  This is the essence of Leftist thought. It is a devolution from reason to “belief,” in an effort to stave off a feeling of powerlessness. And if government is Good, it is a logical elaboration that more government power is Better. But the opposite is apparent both to anyone who has ever had to deal with Government, and, I think, to any dispassionate observer.

  It is in sympathy with the first and in the hope of enlarging the second group that I have written this book.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My son asked me to explain the difference between a Conservative and a Liberal. I went on at some length. He thought for a while and said, “Then, basically, it’s the difference between the Heavenly Dream and the God-Awful Reality”—a succinct and accurate compression of those views which I have, at somewhat greater and, I hope, excusable length, endeavored to express here.

  I had never knowingly talked with nor read the works of a Conservative before moving to Los Angeles, some eight years ago.

  I am indebted to very patient friends and teachers I met here, who inspired me to seek some understanding of the political process.

  I would particularly like to thank Endre Balogh and Rabbi Mordecai Finley. They introduced me to the works of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and, so, began my efforts at self-education; and to Jon Voight, who, among other acts of kindness, gave me Whittaker Chambers’s Witness.

  As my reading broadened, I became aware of various nexuses of Conservative thought: I discovered that my radio had an AM band, and that the news and commentary on KCLA from Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and Glenn Beck made more sense to me than the bemused and sad paternalism which had previously filled my drivetime.

  I am very grateful to my wife and children, for putting up with my virtual monomania as I wrestled with what had become, for me, a new way of considering human interaction; to Sloan Harris for his forbearance, encouragement, and championship of the project; and to my assistant Pam Susemiehl for her patience, good humor, and much appreciated suggestions during the writing of this book.

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