the switch

Playwright David Mamet has announced his switch from the 'brain-dead' left to the right. He says:

'a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.'

Mamet describes his latest play November as 'a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view.'

He draws on his own experience in the rehearsal room to argue against government intervention:

'take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.'

The problem with Mamet's point-of-view is that he appears to write as an inhabitant of Planet America¹:

'we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances'.

He seems incurious to discover (unlike New York playwright Wallace Shawn²) if anyone elsewhere might be picking up the tab for these rather wonderful privileged circumstances.

¹American satirist and talk-show host, Stephen Colbert, interviewed the presenter of a CNN programme called “Planet in Peril”. Colbert asks, “Are you talking about Planet Earth?” (“Yes.”) “Could that eventually affect Planet America?” (A Climatologist Walks Into The Bar)
² His play The Fever reviewed here.