[Tiger_vs_Mantis]

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

A typically liberal perspective is not that government is corrupt, but that it is easily corrupted by monied interests. It's a huge difference that Mamet either does not understand or does not go out of his way to make more clear. If anything it is conservatives who feel that government is INHERENTLY corrupt, while liberals still believe in the possibility of a government by and for the people. Since liberals believe that elite interests inevitably leverage their power against the average citizen, it goes without saying liberals do not believe that humans are generally good at heart (if they were good at heart, then there would be no problem with disproportionate power, as no one with a godo heart would seek to abuse that position). In my opinion the liberal perspective on human nature is agnostic.

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

Strawman. Liberals do not believe everything is wrong with the world, and conservatives don't believe everything is right. Why do conservative believe we are justified in fighting a war in Iraq right now, because everything over there was A-OK?

Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

and people can also act like decent human beings. wow. it's almost as if there is no easy answer to the question of human nature!

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day;

well some people do, and some people don't.

and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be,

this passage is neutered by its vague generalizations. of course it's true that we aren't the villains that SOME people make us out to be, and we probably are the villains (and heroes) that others DO make us out to be. what is mamet referring to? whose image of villainous USA is he refuting?

but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human)

So humans are 80% awful and 20% "inspired."

individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it. For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

The Constitution says or implies no such thing. The Constitutions grants many rights to the individual. If the Constitution took such a bleak view of humanity than it would not have trusted the individual with those rights, and would have taken them away rather than having protected them.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

The Constitution acknowledges the liberal/leftist argument, that monied interests will inevitably undermine democracy if they are allowed to grow unchecked.

I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered. Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

JFK was deeply flawed as a President and as a human being, and he also had his successes. Nothing new there.

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

well that's precisely the problem, isn't it.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world.

like Iraq?

Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I.

BO-RING!!!!

So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.

Notice how to Mamet human beings are "swine" but the military, government and corporations are basically decent but fallible. Quite the humanist!

Do I speak as a member of the "privileged class"? If you will

In other words, "yes." Hasn't Mamet read his Elements of Style? Never use three words where one will do.

—but classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. That is: Immigrants came and continue to come here penniless and can (and do) become rich;

Mamet is begging the question. The extent to which these are true is highly debatable. Many studies show that wealth in the US is fairly static.

the nerd makes a trillion dollars;

no he doesn't.

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

Simplified Mamet: When I wasn't rich I thought the government was good. Now that I'm rich, not so much.