Recessional

The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of the Free Lunch

David Mamet

• Publisher: Broadside e-books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780063159006
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art et politique

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

"Savagery appeased can only grow. Once you give in to it, it must escalate, like a fire searching for air."

The man who won the Pulitzer Prize for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, who wrote the classic films THE VERDICT and WAG THE DOG sounds his alarm about the Visigoths at our gates.

In RECESSIONAL he calls out, skewers, mocks, and, most importantly, dissects the virus of conformity which is now an existential threat to the West.

A broad-ranging journey through history, the Bible, and literature, RECESSIONAL examines how politics and cultural attitudes about rebellion have shifted in the United States in the last generation. By screaming down freedom of thought and expression, Mamet explains, we kill invention and democracy – the foundations of security and growth.

A wickedly funny, wistful and wry appeal to the free-thinking citizen, RECESSIONAL is a vital warning that if we don't confront the cultural thuggery now, the commissars and their dupes will transform the Land of the Free into the dictatorship at which they aim.

Index

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accident chain, 52–53

ACLU, 96

Actors Studio, 165

Addams, Jane, 18

Adler, Polly, 114

African Americans. See also slaves and slavery

American culture and, 160

in armed forces, 55

assimilation and, 59

Jews and, 57–59

supposed fragility of, 35, 36

white women and, 35–36

aging, 191, 192, 209

Albee, Edward, 162–163

Algonquin Hotel, 159, 160

America

as aspirational, 213

culture of, 160

immigrants to, 97–98

American Buffalo (Mamet), 162, 166

American character, 211

anarchy, 90, 98

anonymity

inclusion as, 48

Jews and, 48, 56, 97

anti-Semitism

assimilation and, 97

cause of, 98

derogation of Israel, 194

Dreyfus affair and, 8–9

Graham and “workday,” 46–47

apparatchiks, 89

Aristophanes, 14

Armageddon, 204–205

armed forces, African Americans in, 55

arts. See also theatre

careers of talentless in, 190

free speech and, 91–92

intention of artist, 189–190, 191–192

novelty in, 120

Asperger’s syndrome, 61

assimilation

African Americans and, 59

anonymity as, 48, 56

Jews and, 48, 56, 97

atom bomb, 29–30

autism, 61

Baldwin, Alec, 168

Beckett, Samuel, 190

bedtime stories and fear, 91

Bellamy, Edward, 134

Benchley, Robert, 159–160

Bergman, Marilyn, 204

Berman, Alan, 204

Bettelheim, Bruno, 61, 62, 63

Bisset, Jackie, 24

Black Lives Matter, marketing of, 25

Bleuler, Eugen, 61

The Book of Five Rings (Musashi), 197

bookstores, 115–116

Borden. G. F., 135

Broadway

current offerings, 157, 158

Dramatists Guild, 162–163

early great American dramas, 120–121

free speech and, 91–92, 94

golden age, 166

“ice,” 163–164

live, national, 143, 144

middle class and, 166

pageant as dominant on, 92–93

playwright’s tasks, 145, 147–150

Studio Duplicating Service, 165

successful plays, 155–156

as transformative experience, 93–94

Ziegfeld Follies, 200–201

Bronstein, Steve, 123

Bruce, Lenny, 25

Buckley, William F., 46–47

bullying

costs of confronting, 12, 13

forms of, 11–12

schools’ response to allegations of, 12–13

as unlicensed application of power, 11

by weak, 13

Burke, John, 88

business, incitement to fear and hate as strategy of, 9

Butler, Samuel, 103

California

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