Hero Worship: David Mamet

I don't understand people, what they aspire to, what makes their hearts beat faster, what makes them break out into a cold sweat and fall to their knees. You would think it would be something you could have, something you could hold in your hands, something you could touch. It never is; it's always something forever beyond your reach.

For progressives it's true equality, true justice. Even just writing these words dilutes their power, but they are so meaningful to me. They aren't words, they are the ultimate, the goal I would lay down and die for if I could.  

For conservatives, it's something different, something just as ephemeral but just as impossible: It's a particular type of American heroism. The gruff battle-worn soldier who has saved a thousand men with his wit and courage. A million things have to fall into place to make this man. He has to be a warrior at heart, impatient of rules, wary of authority but tersely, perfectly authoritative himself. The foundation to grow this man has to be fertile. A hard-scrabble, take-no-charity, give-no-quarter, dusty life with only family and integrity to count on. He is raised by a no-nonsense mother and a task-maker father who spend little time nurturing, expecting instead for him to take lessons from the deep earth, from the forever skies. There are no excuses for this man. You either do or you are done. He does. Every day in the hot sun and the unforgiving land. And then he goes to war and kills because he has to, because he believes in his fellow soldiers, in his family, in his America, and in his God.

This is the man David Mamet idolizes. This is a man he has spent his life trying to write, trying to articulate, trying to materialize. And why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't you? This man would save your life and not expect anything in return. What could be more seductive than that? 

This man is the epitome of masculinity -- and it is such a delusion. The idea of this man has swept across nations and may honestly be the personification of Satan. Because I don't think there is one single other thing that has caused more harm than this idea of what makes a man a real man and is more seductive, more insidious, and less attainable. And yet what passes for it, what masquerades as real masculinity has none of the generosity and all of the intolerance -- and this is what passes for the masculine ideal because it's the closest anyone can ever hope to achieve. That has to be the most fucked up thing ever.

If a man didn't have to try to cobble together the qualities that make a supreme warrior, he could probably make a better father, a better friend, a better lover, a better husband, and a better human. Because life today needs a more complex man, someone able to temper force with compassion, action with forgiveness, camaraderie with integrity, and authority with understanding. The warrior ideal is a great archetype for story, for legend, but less so for family and community.

Because the men who idolize this ideal the most are the least likely to have experienced the ultimate test and have not been forged by the fire of battle but by the shallowness of political or corporate-life, the hyperbole is perhaps the most heroic thing about them. It's hollow heroics, the words absurd and empty, the ideas devoid of intellectual attention, the concepts barren and dishonest. It's just words, culled from the Book of Warrior with no purpose but to make your heart race, ready for a battle that will never come, that you will never fight, against enemies you don't have.

Link: PZ Meyer.