Joe Rogan Experience #1801 - David Mamet

1. 0:00 – 1:47

   California as a modern Orwellian state: thought control and censorship fears

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. DMDavid Mamet0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) And we're up and running. How are you, sir?

   4. DMDavid Mamet0:15

      I'm great. Happy to be back in the United States. I've been in, uh, California for the last-

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      (laughs)

   6. DMDavid Mamet0:20

      ... uh, little-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      The People's Republic of California?

   8. DMDavid Mamet0:24

      Yeah, exactly so.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:25

      Yeah, it's, uh, an interesting turn of events. California has become a strange new place.

   10. DMDavid Mamet0:31

       Yes, it has.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       A- almost unrecognizable. (laughs)

   12. DMDavid Mamet0:34

       Yes. Well, it'd be recognizable to George Orwell.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       Y- well, yeah, right? Even he probably been like, "Wow." H- he was probably ... If, if you could get George Orwell from, you know, the time he wrote 198- ... When did he write 84?

   14. DMDavid Mamet0:48

       Oh, that's pretty good. I, uh, I don't know. I think it was the late '40s. We can, we can l- look it up.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       And then to see, uh, the ... you know, in 2022, he was, he was in the neighborhood.

   16. DMDavid Mamet1:00

       He-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       He definitely was pretty close.

   18. DMDavid Mamet1:01

       He was off like, oh, 1.2%.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       (laughs) There it is, '49.

   20. DMDavid Mamet1:05

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Wow, interesting.

   22. DMDavid Mamet1:06

       You know, George Orwell said ... He was a interesting guy. He was a cop in, um, Burma. He was a, a, a-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       Really?

   24. DMDavid Mamet1:13

       Yes. Uh, he was a hook- colonial cop, and then he was a, a roustabout, and he wrote, uh, Down and Out in Paris and London. He was a bum. And, uh, he said, "When thought control comes, it will come not from the right, but from the left."

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       Wonder why he thought that?

   26. DMDavid Mamet1:29

       Well, because he got around.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:31

       Mm-hmm.

   28. DMDavid Mamet1:31

       I mean, he ... That guy had seen a huge bunch of life and he looked at what things were from every angle, right? He was a well-brought-up Englishman, and then he was a, a tramp and a dishwasher and a cop. And, uh, he saw it all. He saw it clearly.

2. 1:47 – 4:05

   Authoritarianism from the left? Stalin, Wilson-era repression, and WWII internment

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:47

      But it's ... When y- ... Classically, like, when we think about depictions of totalitarianism and authoritarianism, when I was a kid, we always thought of it as being a right-wing thing. It is like a ... There was always, like, a right-wing dictator-type character that imposed censorship and authoritarianism. You didn't think of it as something that would be coming from the left.

   2. DMDavid Mamet2:11

      Well, but, uh, you know, who was Stalin? Who was Trotsky and Lenin? They're certainly the left.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:15

      Right.

   4. DMDavid Mamet2:15

      And, uh, Pol Pot and, uh, a- and all of the Chinese. Also, if you look at the history of this country, that the f- ... that, uh, Woodrow Wilson imposed strictures against talking about the war. Anybody who talked about the war and said a- anything that could be construed as unf- unfavorable was thrown in prison.

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:36

      Really?

   6. DMDavid Mamet2:37

      Oh, yes. Yes. They ... A lot of people were thrown in prison. A lot of people had their businesses wrecked.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:42

      What year was this?

   8. DMDavid Mamet2:43

      Uh, Wilson ... Would be 1917.

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:45

      Wow!

   10. DMDavid Mamet2:45

       1917, 1918.

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:47

       They were throwing people in jail?

   12. DMDavid Mamet2:49

       Yes, they were. A-

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:49

       For talking badly about World War I?

   14. DMDavid Mamet2:52

       Yes. And then, of course, um, Roosevelt did the same thing.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       Really?

   16. DMDavid Mamet2:59

       Yeah, sure. And we'll look at it. Also, who did he ... He tossed all the Japanese-Americans in prison.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:04

       Right, in concentration camps.

   18. DMDavid Mamet3:04

       He said, "Go into a concentration camp."

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:06

       Yeah.

   20. DMDavid Mamet3:06

       By the way, all of our, uh, loyal German-Americans in New York, in Yorkville, we're gonna leave them alone 'cause they're white. Meanwhile, the w- the w- Yorkville, New York and Baltimore were full of Nazi spies. They were, they were ... Uh, you could see the shipping being torpedoed from the beach at Coney Island 'cause they were giving away all that information. Um, s- ... The left has always believed that the, uh, the idea of fascism, i- means, uh, a g- a bundle, everything's together, everything's for the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside of the state, as, as Mussolini said. And with the exception of, of those particular fascists, uh, uh, the Nazis, uh, it's always been the left, because they, they don't believe in the individual.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:51

       So, you, you think that that's the root cause of it, not believing in the individual, believing in the collective, that that automatically lends itself to e- erasing individual rights?

3. 4:05 – 5:12

   Enlightenment, religion, and why societies need myths

   1. DMDavid Mamet4:05

      Yes. I mean, it also goes back to the, um, to the enlightenment, to the idea that God doesn't exist and the idea that, uh, human being is this ... is th- is the measure of all things. Well, if the human being is the measure of all things, what does that mean our reason? And our reason is completely flawed. All of us do things every day which are unreasonable, sinful, wrong, and absurd, right? And the reasonable person says, "Wait a second. Why did I do that? What do I have to refer to in my confusion and my self-loathing?" Well, the Bible was a pretty good bet, you know, for if the ch- ... Hebrew Bible for 6,000 years, right? The kn- Christian Bible for two thous- ... It's a pretty good bet. Say, "Wait a second. Let's talk about human nature. You really aren't that smart. You really aren't in charge of the world. Y- you really aren't, although do you think you are, you think that 'cause you're human. But God's in charge of the world, and there's a certain way things are. And if you'd like to get out of your wretched self-consciousness and self-delusion, you better get your ass into church."

4. 5:12 – 12:12

   The Bible as myth and allegory: translation, interpretation, and "two octopuses"

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:12

      But don't you think that ... You know, when atheists talk about religion and they criticize, uh, organized religion and criticize the Bible, they, they talk about things that are in the Bible that seem preposterous, right? They talk about people rising from the dead and walking on water, particularly the Old Testament, right? Like, to use that as a guidebook for life, you have to kind of ignore some of the stuff that doesn't make sense.

   2. DMDavid Mamet5:41

      Well-

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:41

      Don't you think?

   4. DMDavid Mamet5:42

      Th- the Bible's a myth, okay? The Bible-

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:45

      Right.

   6. DMDavid Mamet5:45

      ... especially the Hew- ... The Christian Bible comes out of the, the Jewish Bible. It's a, it's a retelling of the story in a different way. But the Jewish Bible is a myth, and the myth is the myth of creation and the myth of human experience. So what it does is s- uh, chapter by chapter, story by story, it-... challenges us with disturbing and bizarre images in which it says, "Wh- why don't you try to understand this? See if you can understand this. What does it really mean to escape from Egypt? Does it mean escaping from your inner pharaoh? What does it really mean to part the Red Sea?" So these, these stories are told ... uh, any myth is a dramatic retelling of an underlying reality that can't be expressed rationally, right? So the atheists say, "Everything can be expressed rationally. For example, you know that the earth is burning up. You can tell that because sometimes things get warmer and sometimes things get colder. You can also tell that when things get colder, that's obviously because the earth is burning up, because the sun is melting the glaciers and the glaciers are raising the temperature. You can also tell, of course, that to be fair to everyone, children change sex. You know that, don't you? And you can tell that men can compete as women and women compete as men." This is all human confusion because we trust our senses and we trust our mind, and the mind just ... it doesn't work real good. We're very cunning, but we aren't very smart, human beings. And that's the message of the Bible. And so if you look at, um, Moses ... sorry, Moses. Moses was ... they tried to ... the Egyptians tried to kill him all of his life. The Egyptians tried to kill. He didn't have any trouble with the Egyptians 'cause God was on his side. He had trouble with the Jews 'cause the Jews were always saying, "Who the hell do you think you are?" So that's, that ... the, the all, the Old Testament is the story of atheists really, saying, "Who the hell do you think you are?"

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:42

      So when, when you're talking about the Bible, right? What ... I mean, and the lessons in the Bible, isn't part of the problem is that you're ... people translated it from ancient Hebrew to Latin to Greek and all these other languages and then eventually to English. Like a lot's lost along the way, right? And a lot is open to interpretation. Like a lot of what we're talking about in these myths and stories that people take as factual occurrences, they probably were some sort of a ... there's some sort of a lesson in the myth, some sort of allegory. There's, there's, there's things about these stories that probably have hints of truth, but isn't it hard to kind of decipher it all-

   8. DMDavid Mamet8:24

      Oh, that's a-

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:24

      ... if you can't speak the mother language?

   10. DMDavid Mamet8:26

       That's a very good question. So when a ... uh, first of all, let me ask you a qu- okay, I'm gonna tell you a story, okay?

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:30

       Okay.

   12. DMDavid Mamet8:31

       These two octopuses walk into a, a, a, a laundromat.

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       Okay.

   14. DMDavid Mamet8:35

       See? That's what a myth is. I said, "Two octopuses walk into a laundromat," and you didn't say, "Wait a second. Octopuses can't walk and they wouldn't be in a laundromat."

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:44

       Well, I thought about it, but I'm being polite.

   16. DMDavid Mamet8:46

       (laughs) So what you said is, "Yeah, tell me more." Okay.

   17. JRJoe Rogan8:49

       I'm, well, hoping it's a good joke.

   18. DMDavid Mamet8:50

       Okay. Well, I'll get to that.

   19. JRJoe Rogan8:52

       (laughs)

   20. DMDavid Mamet8:52

       But this ... the same thing with the, the Bible is really two octopuses walk into a laundromat. So I'm gonna tell you a story. I want you to suspe- suspend your disbelief because there's something in this story you might get a kick out of.

   21. JRJoe Rogan9:04

       Mm-hmm.

   22. DMDavid Mamet9:04

       You might ... and you might ... there might be some wisdom in it. There might yes and might no, but if you listen as you would to a story, which the Bible is, it's a myth, rather than to a, a factual retelling, you might get a kick out of it. Now, as far as a translation goes, I can read the Bible in Hebrew 'cause I lear- started learning when I was 40 or s- it's an easy language. And there were a lot of mistranslations, uh, but the, the, the main point is not the mistranslations 'cause there are some pretty good English translations too, but the main point is saying that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense.

   23. JRJoe Rogan9:37

       So what do you think the Bible is? Do you think the Bible is a bunch of very wise people got together and they formed these stories to sort of illustrate the folly of mankind and how one needs to have, like, a moral compass and guiding principles that are set in stone and that you have these rules to live your life in a moral and just way and that'll make for a better society? Like where do you, what do you think the Bible actually is?

   24. DMDavid Mamet10:09

       Well, uh, uh, a friend of mine, a rabbi, was, uh, uh, is a Reform rabbi, was applying to get into an Orthodox, uh, yeshiva, an Orthodox, uh, college, and he's a Reform rabbi. So the guy says, he says, "You have very good credentials and you're very well learned. Do you think the Bible is literally the work of God?" The rabbi says, "No." So the guy says, "Well, is it possible?" Rabbi says, "Yes." Guy says, "Okay, you're in." Right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan10:36

       (laughs)

   26. DMDavid Mamet10:37

       So there's Dennis Prager, you know?

   27. JRJoe Rogan10:39

       Mm-hmm.

   28. DMDavid Mamet10:39

       Who, um, I'm crazy about, said the other day, he said, "You know, I, I don't believe in the Torah, the Jewish Bible, because of God." He said, "I believe in God because of the Torah." So if you read the Torah, the Jewish Bible, and the Christian Bible's just an extension of that, you say, "My God, this is incredible wisdom." This goes back to the beginning of time. People who have tried to figure out everything-

   29. JRJoe Rogan11:05

       Right.

   30. DMDavid Mamet11:05

       And they, they didn't have the language that we have, but they had the language that they had and this was thousands of years of experience progressed and compressed into a myth. So we know that this is true 'cause, like, uh, liberals have always been in love with the myths, es- especially Jews, with the myths of other cultures, right? We say how beautiful it is that this culture has that myth, that the Haidan Indians say the world was formed by a large beaver, and when the beaver slapped his tail like that, it made the oceans, and when the blah, blah, blah. It's a gorgeous myth.
5. 12:12 – 16:21

   When religion fades, ideology becomes religion: cult dynamics and "death cult" framing

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:12

      I've been very curious about this-

   2. DMDavid Mamet12:14

      (clears throat)

   3. JRJoe Rogan12:14

      ... lately 'cause it seems like, uh, as you were saying, like, from the left, you're getting a lot of what seems like-... very cult-like behavior, and this very cult-like, this ignoring of basic truth to fit a narrative. And, uh, I think that in the absence of religion, it's almost like we're hardwired for some sort of, some sort of guidelines that we all collectively agree to follow, whether it's ag- agreed... whether it's Judaism or, you know, Mormonism, or whatever it is, like, co- a collective group of guidelines. It's almost like human beings are hardwired to follow some sort of a guideline. And if we don't have one, we create one. And even though we don't say it's a religion, we behave exactly if it's a religion. Like, if you questioned it at all-

   4. DMDavid Mamet13:09

      There's no question about it.

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:10

      Yeah, yeah. That's, that's what's going on right now, right?

   6. DMDavid Mamet13:12

      Sure. There's no question about it. So what the left is, is... I hope nobody's listening when I say this 'cause it's kind of, uh, it's, uh, extreme. It's-

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:21

      No one's gonna listen. Go on.

   8. DMDavid Mamet13:22

      It's a, it's a death cult. It's a cult about death. It's... And that's why I wanna talk about my, my outfit today.

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:28

      Okay.

   10. DMDavid Mamet13:29

       That-

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:29

       Tell me about your outfit.

   12. DMDavid Mamet13:30

       I, I'll get there in a second because I'm-

   13. JRJoe Rogan13:31

       (laughs)

   14. DMDavid Mamet13:31

       I spent a couple of years, uh, of COVID thinking, "I just don't get it." I'm a child of the mid-century, you know, my dads and my uncles, everybody I knew went through the war. My f- f- grandfather fought in World War I. I've made a living when I should've been in jail, right, or, uh, homeless 'cause I don't have any talents except writing. And because I could do that, I made a living of a wonderful family because of America, right? That the, the... And I'm a Jew, and I'm not getting killed 'cause I live in America. And I saw the country transform. When I was a kid and I used to go down Southern, there were chain gangs and there were lynchings and there were separate... That's pretty gosh-darn close. And those people who were that... being treated that way, their great-grandparents had been slaves. And now we see that racism is, in effect, gone. There's certain prejudices of whites against Blacks. Well, duh. There's certain prejudices of Blacks against whites. But it's gone. We see that gays who were... e- committed suicide or lived their life in terror or were blacklisted or, um, uh, uh, are now normalized. These are wonderful things.

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:40

       Mm-hmm.

   16. DMDavid Mamet14:41

       This is a magnificent country that we live in. And to see it go to shit in front of my eyes, where half, half the country said, "You know what? No. I, I'm not ready to die yet. I'm not gonna submit to the death cult. I don't worship the sun. I don't think the sun is trying to kill us."

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:59

       Why, why do you think it's a death cult? Like, what, what do you, what are you saying?

   18. DMDavid Mamet15:02

       Because-

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:03

       What about it is death cult?

   20. DMDavid Mamet15:05

       Well, lookit, if you say, uh, uh, as I've heard, perhaps you have... So, people say, "You know, my kids don't want to have kids because we live in such a dreadful place."

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:11

       I joke around about that on stage. I'm like, "Yeah, why would you want to have kids today with all the books and medicine and shit?"

   22. DMDavid Mamet15:16

       Yeah, really. (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan15:17

       (laughs) It's so stupid. The reason why people are here is because people had sex before they even had a language.

   24. DMDavid Mamet15:23

       Yeah. And people say, "Well, wait a second. Uh, the seas are rising. The seas are rising. Al- although the seas are rising, I'm gonna buy a house in Martha's Vineyard," right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan15:33

       Right.

   26. DMDavid Mamet15:34

       And although we're f- poisoning the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and inert gas, I'm gonna fly in my private plane that b- been s- uh, three-

   27. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Right.

   28. DMDavid Mamet15:44

       ... 3,000, blah, blah, blah. And there's... And, uh, uh, you know what also? There's no such thing ab- as men and women. I know people have, um, overlooked this for a million years of human history, but now we know it's true, so we have to teach our chil- children this, right? And s-

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:00

       I don't think they're saying there's no such thing as men and women. They're saying it's flexible and you could be whatever you want.

   30. DMDavid Mamet16:05

       Well, yeah, except anybody who's ever been in the backseat of a Chevy knows it's not flexible, right? You can behave in any way that you want, right? But there are men and there are women saying, "No, no, no, that's not a, that's not a fact. That's not a fact, and you mustn't mentioned it."

6. 16:21 – 18:59

   Sex, pornography, and civilizational decline: gender obsession and lost eros

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:21

      Have you ever, uh, read any of Douglas Murray?

   2. DMDavid Mamet16:23

      No.

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:24

      D- Douglas Murray was a brilliant guy, a British intellectual. He's, he said something that I've never forgot. I, I, I keep harping on it, that at the end of every civilization, when a civilization starts to crumble, they become obsessed with gender. They become obsessed with swapping gender, acting out-

   4. DMDavid Mamet16:40

      Sure, yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:41

      ... different genders, like, g- gender nonconformity. And he, he doesn't have an answer why, but it seems like they... when things... w- for whatever it is, whatever cause of society collapsing, there's something where they become obsessed with definitions and-

   6. DMDavid Mamet16:59

      Well-

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:59

      ... particularly gender definitions.

   8. DMDavid Mamet17:01

      Well, uh, definite- yes, they become obsessed with definition. They also become obsessed with sex because it offers experience, right? The problem is, if you become sex... You know, when I was a kid, we used this joke about say, "You know what? I betcha if we got an old guy, he could rent a post office box, we could get Playboy."

   9. JRJoe Rogan17:23

      (laughs)

   10. DMDavid Mamet17:23

       Right? Now, Playboy, those Playboys, they look like the Shipping News, right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:28

       I know.

   12. DMDavid Mamet17:28

       But the problem is you can just sh- chase pornography so far, right? We'll say, "We'll show this, we'll show that, we'll do this, we'll do that." Everything's permitted. And then people get bored. So what's happening in the younger generation, in their 20s, they're bored with sex. They don't wanna have sex. They want to stay in their rooms with porn. They don't want to get married. They don't want to have kids. And-

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:48

       Really?

   14. DMDavid Mamet17:49

       Yes. And Allen Bloom talked about this, the great Allen Bloom. In 1988, he wrote a book called the... I think it's called The Death of the American Mind. And he said that he saw at the University of Chicago that there was no eros, uh, the, the longing for the other, that the kids weren't longing for the other. They also weren't longing for the other in wisdom. They weren't interested in wisdom. They-

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:11

       What year was this, when you're saying?

   16. DMDavid Mamet18:12

       '88.

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       Really?

   18. DMDavid Mamet18:14

       The Closing of the American Mind-

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       God, I was a kid in '88, and we were definitely interested in sex. (laughs)

   20. DMDavid Mamet18:18

       Well, me too, but, you know-

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:19

       I don't know if that's-

   22. DMDavid Mamet18:19

       ... maybe you slept in a- (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:21

       I don't know if that's accurate. I mean, that's a gross generalization that kids aren't... I think kids are very interested in sex. I think, uh, there's, there's a whole host of problems with people getting i- interested in pornography, and one of them is that they wear themselves out beating off all day-

   24. DMDavid Mamet18:36

       Well, sure.

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:36

       ... and then they don't have any energy for the opposite sex. And also, there's the thing that it's just so accessible.You know, children are so impulsive, k- young kids are so impulsive. You get a 20-year-old kid or an 18-year-old kid, you give them a phone, he's gonna just watch porn on it. They're, they're not going to be able to help themselves, especially if they never saw it before and now they have access to it anytime they want on their iPad. Like, ugh.

7. 18:59 – 23:43

   Prosperity as decay: the shrinking middle class, rule-enforcement, and the pruning metaphor

   1. DMDavid Mamet18:59

      Well, so here's the thing about, uh ... the problem with our society, the problem with our country, the problem with the West is prosperity. 'Cause n- 'cause it's ... what survives prosperity, right? What, what billionaire's kid works for a living?

   2. JRJoe Rogan19:14

      Right. Very few.

   3. DMDavid Mamet19:15

      None of them, because they-

   4. JRJoe Rogan19:16

      Yeah.

   5. DMDavid Mamet19:17

      None of them. W- you no w-

   6. JRJoe Rogan19:19

      Doesn't Donald Trump Jr. work for a living?

   7. DMDavid Mamet19:21

      Oh, yeah, he does. Okay. I, I g- I'll give him a pass, but he comes from an extraordinary family.

   8. JRJoe Rogan19:25

      When you go- you look at a, a person who's a, like ... I know a lot of people give him shit, but as, when it comes to, like, billionaires' kids, he's about as good off as I've ever seen one.

   9. DMDavid Mamet19:34

      Also, he's, he's a wonderful speaker. He's li- you know, he's a g- good thinker and a wonderful speaker. But what happens is this country is the wealthiest, the most prosperous, the safest, until recently, in human history. And the question is, what are you gonna do when the middle class is gone? There's nobody ... the merchants are gone, the farmers are gone, the boot makers are gone. The middle class and the industrialists, the, uh, the, uh, and the, and the people who ... the agriculturists thought about the world al- e- every moment of the day. If you owned a shoe store, right, and you were an independent contractor, you had to say, "My god, what does this leather cost? What can I sell it for? What happens if I am late with my payment? Is this a good enough grade? Can I be nice to this person who's a son of a bitch? Can I get them to pay a little bit more? What is my rent cost? What happens if it rains tomorrow?" These are the, the concerns of everybody in the middle class. But when the middle class is gone, you got people at the, the bottom of the food chain who were, you know, gang raised on the streets, 'cause there's no alternative to them, or very little, and people who are gang raised in the elite schools, and they're both taught there's no reason to work, that strife is error. That's what th- that's what they're taught. To have to strive for something is wrong. It should either be free or it should be easy, but to pay for your school is wrong. Uh, someone should pay for the school, right? To have to pay for that, um, iPhone is wrong. I should be able to go into the store and take it out, right? So if no one's ... if the middle class is not along t- around to say, "Wait a second, I'm in charge here," right? "I pay the effing taxes. I'm in charge." The cops are gonna come take you to jail if you steal from the store. No, not anymore, right? And we're gonna let your line die out if you're a billionaire and you're engaged in child pornography and money laundering, you know, and, and bribing the president of the United States. We're gonna send you to jail. W- we'll say there's no rules anymore. It was the middle class that had to insist upon the rules, 'cause if they didn't have certainty, they couldn't live. They h- needed to know what the results of their actions were gonna bring about, right? Because if they didn't, they couldn't order the leather. They couldn't sign a lease, or they ... uh, right? They couldn't throw the robber out of the, out of the store. So they were involved in, in human interaction every moment of every day. And that's the history of America up until recently.

   10. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       So what went wrong?

   11. DMDavid Mamet22:10

       Well, w- what went wrong is prosperity, right? That civilizations die, like anything else dies. Things which are organic, means they're gonna die. Say something's organic. It was given life, it means it's gonna mature and die. So the question is, what do you do when it comes into a final stage? You got a tree, starts as a little seed, blah, blah, blah. Becomes a tree, uh, i- it gets tall- taller and taller and taller. Eventually, it qui- ... as they say, goes to seed. It gives all of this energy. It says, "Geez, I'm dying now. I'm gonna put all my energy not into making branches, but into making seeds, 'cause I gotta make sure I, I can continue." That's what you say when something's gone to seed. The only thing you can do with that tree is prune it. If you prune it, you can extend its life. You can't extend its life forever, but you can extend its life. So what the conservatives are saying now with the Trump phenomenon and the Tea Party is, "It's time to prune it. Yes, we're incredibly prosperous, and yes, that has some downsides, but God put us here for a reason. This is a magnificent country. Let's prune it." Right? "Let's prune the government. Let's go back to, uh, religion, and let's put the, uh, the human behavior back in the, the hands of the individual rather than the state."

   12. JRJoe Rogan23:27

       But how does that erase the problem of prosperity? 'Cause it's, it seem- w- what is th- wha- uh, what is, why does prosperity cause all the calamity that we're seeing today, all the problems?

   13. DMDavid Mamet23:38

       It's, it, it, it's inevitable, just as ... uh, uh, uh, I wanted to talk about this, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan23:43

       Okay.

8. 23:43 – 33:26

   Jiu-jitsu and aviation: rediscovering purpose (and the jacket that made him a pilot)

   1. DMDavid Mamet23:43

      Okay. So I'm, I'm about 75. Okay? So I'm-

   2. JRJoe Rogan23:46

      You look great.

   3. DMDavid Mamet23:47

      Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

   4. JRJoe Rogan23:48

      You really do.

   5. DMDavid Mamet23:49

      Ju- jujitsu.

   6. JRJoe Rogan23:50

      Yeah, man. It's amazing. It's working.

   7. DMDavid Mamet23:52

      Ain't it?

   8. JRJoe Rogan23:53

      You know, a lot of 75-year-olds are fucking falling apart.

   9. DMDavid Mamet23:56

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan23:56

       You, you look great.

   11. DMDavid Mamet23:57

       Yeah. My, my, my teacher said, "You should also re- uh, uh, you know, so compete in the seniors." You know, it's the ... at age 50, compete in the seniors. So he goes, "Where's the, where's the honor in that? (laughs) To whomp some 50-year-old?" No.

   12. JRJoe Rogan24:09

       That's hilarious. You as a 75 are looking at, at 50-year-olds like they're old men.

   13. DMDavid Mamet24:14

       Y- yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan24:15

       (laughs)

   15. DMDavid Mamet24:15

       And so I moved out ... My, my wife says one day, my lovely wife, she says she wants to move from Boston to LA. So I said, "Yes. Yes, dear." I said ... oh, you got some more coffee?

   16. JRJoe Rogan24:25

       Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

   17. DMDavid Mamet24:26

       Thanks a lot. So I move out to LA. So thank you. So I'm feeling okay. I'm whatever I was. I was like 55 years old, had a magnificent career as a playwright and a novelist and a movie maker and TV, blah, blah, blah. Wonderful time. Da, da, da.I guess it's just time for me to learn how to play golf or something.

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:48

       (laughs)

   19. DMDavid Mamet24:48

       Because I kept saying, "You know, I've been where I'm going, I've been where I'm going. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine." It's a bunch of bullshit, right? So anyway, I just done a movie with Eddie O'Neill, Ed O'Neill, you know Ed.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:58

       I love Ed.

   21. DMDavid Mamet24:59

       Me too. Married with children of, uh, what do you call it? Modern Family. Known him forever.

   22. JRJoe Rogan25:05

       Black belt in jiu-jitsu.

   23. DMDavid Mamet25:06

       You bet.

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:07

       Yeah.

   25. DMDavid Mamet25:07

       And so, there I am, and I was doing a movie with Ed in New York, and he says, "Man, you got to come out to LA. If you do, I'm gonna introduce you to these guys, the Gracies." And he says, "There's this guy, Rorion Gracie." And Ed is a, he's a big guy. He's like 6'3", big guy. He had a walk-on and a cup of coffee with the Steelers. He's a tough son of a bitch. He says, "These guys, I've never seen anything like it." Okay, so I move out to LA. The first day I'm at a restaurant, and there's Ed O'Neill. I say, "Ed, baby, how are you?" He says, "Hey, Dave, welcome, welcome, welcome." Cup of coffee. I said, "Oh, you got to tell me about these jiu-jitsu guys." He says, "Oh, yeah, they're next door." So he takes me next door, and it's an Otto Magno Street Sports. And that's how I got into jiu-jitsu.

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:50

       Ah.

   27. DMDavid Mamet25:51

       Okay, so I'm into jiu-jitsu, jiu-jitsu, blah, blah, blah. So as you know, you know, it's a very close community because there's no nonsense, right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan26:02

       Mm-hmm.

   29. DMDavid Mamet26:02

       You are what you are.

   30. JRJoe Rogan26:03

       Yeah.
9. 33:26 – 1:06:07

   School ideology wars: CRT, "anti-racism," and the censorship slippery slope

   1. DMDavid Mamet33:26

      It occurred to me, um, just 'cause I, I spent this, you know, I worked, wr- wrote this book. I spent a couple years writing these essays. I said, "You don't understand." I was asking myself the same questions you're asking me. How did we get here? Why, why, why? And I look at all these people in office, you know, we call them politicians, and most of them are thugs and whores and thieves and fools and blah, blah, blah.

   2. JRJoe Rogan33:46

      He said that, not me.

   3. DMDavid Mamet33:47

      What, I said that? Well, you know, you know it's-

   4. JRJoe Rogan33:48

      (laughs)

   5. DMDavid Mamet33:49

      ... you know it's true.

   6. JRJoe Rogan33:50

      I know.

   7. DMDavid Mamet33:50

      There, there are, there are some exceptions, but I thought, "Well, wait a second. Who would've thought that those were gonna be the politicians?" Well, everybody who wrote the Constitution thought that.

   8. JRJoe Rogan33:59

      Right.

   9. DMDavid Mamet33:59

      E- e- everybody who, who ever read the Bible thought that, 'cause that's what happens when people have power. So I thought, "But wait a second. These people, you know, these people in high office, is it possible that they had the power to, to warp a civilization so that we dealt with prosperity through fear?" 'Cause that's what we see around us all the time. It's called, uh, it's called anger, the anger of the left. It's not anger. It's really fear. Is it pos- ... Why would ... These people are idiots, right? And you know, I'm not gonna mention any names, but, you know, you, you people can fill in your own. They're, they're idiots who say that we have to get out of, uh, Afghanistan and leave everything there, or we have to give Iran the nuclear bomb, or that we have to stop ti- digging for oil though we're gonna import oil, et cetera, cetera, cetera. The, uh, they're fools. What happened was not that they caused the decay of the civilization. What happened was that the civilization went through a transition and they came out of the woodwork.

   10. JRJoe Rogan35:00

       They came out of the woodwork how so? Like ...

   11. DMDavid Mamet35:02

       Well, th- look at this. Anybody ever meet any good teachers? Maybe a couple, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan35:09

       Mm-hmm.

   13. DMDavid Mamet35:09

       But we don't r- ... We remember lovingly that one good teacher that we might have met.

   14. JRJoe Rogan35:15

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DMDavid Mamet35:15

       But we remember with shame and hatred the teacher who abused us, who humiliated us, who, uh, dissed us, who called us stupid. We remember those all our lives.

   16. JRJoe Rogan35:26

       Sure.

   17. DMDavid Mamet35:26

       We always have that dream. Every human, a- American anyway, has that dream about, "I forgot to do my homework. What shall I do? I have to kill myself." Right? Teachers down through, uh, history, at l- at least through Western history, have ... They're kind of a, they're kind of a lower middle class. They don't have very high skills. And, um, Milton Friedman said if you took the same skills that a teacher has in a public school into the workplace, he might make 55% of what he makes. And they're, they're, they're treated as if, they, or were treated as if they were, um, uh, good and powerful and hardworking. Well, maybe a few are, but, you know, they aren't any better or worse than you and me. But they're kind of at the bottom of the food chain socially, kind of hanging on, always hanging onto the, the-

   18. JRJoe Rogan36:21

       Public school teachers.

   19. DMDavid Mamet36:22

       Exactly. Hang-

   20. JRJoe Rogan36:24

       Yeah.

   21. DMDavid Mamet36:24

       You know, and as I say, some of them ha- have been, uh, have been magnificent and some haven't. So these people have something, uh, very ... They discovered something very, very powerful, and what they discovered was fascism, and meaning the group, right? So they say, "Well, wait a second. I myself am nothing. I gotta smile at Mr. and Mrs. Smith over there and tell her how good Johnny's doing, but I don't give a shit about that kid and I got my own problems. Leave me alone." They form a union. The union becomes one of the biggest, maybe the biggest, um, donor to the Democratic Party. So all of a sudden, they're in charge of a large extent of the Democratic Party and the De- and ... because the Democrats, you know, being human beings, wanna stay in power and wanna be rich, okay? So they say, "Well, let me kiss the ass of the teachers union."How can I do that? Hmm, say the teacher's union. You know what? I'm tired of being pow- powerless. I'd like to be powerful. I'm gonna say that white people are, are no good, and that's what we're gonna teach, a- and I'm gonna call it critical race theory. Happened to my son, he went to school. Yeah, that's a good idea. S- person B says, "You know what? I got a great idea. Kids love talking about sex. I'm gonna say that there's no such thing as m- man or woman, and I'm gonna start teaching kindergartners there."

   22. JRJoe Rogan37:47

       Yeah, but this is not, like, how they decided to do it. Like, the idea behind critical race theory, I believe, was that they thought that there was a lack of either appreciation or education about the history of the United States, particularly the history of racism and slavery and Jim Crow laws and segregation and redlining, and all these different aspects that have led to this disproportionate number of African Americans in s- in prison and in, in, in these crime-ridden, gang-ridden neighborhoods, and trying to come up with some sort of a, eh, eh, educational method of explaining some of the holes in our history that haven't been discussed. The problem that rational people have about it is that we're like, with any concept, sometimes it starts with good intentions, and then along the way, you have bad actors who get involved and they use it for their own gain. And they use a movement of real concern, a, a, a, a thing that has like, a, a genuine origin and fact and history, and then they start using it... You know, the, the, the worst, uh, term I've heard is b- like, uh, you're a race hustler. And there's a lot of people that elevate their careers by taking these ideas of critical race theory, and then they get hired by universities or hired by corporations to give speeches, and they wind up making exorbitant amounts of money. And they keep making more and more-

   23. DMDavid Mamet39:22

       (clears throat)

   24. JRJoe Rogan39:22

       ... inflammatory statements, and the more outrageous these statements get, and they put them on Twitter, and they make, they write blogs and articles and op-eds, and these outrageous statements get a lot of heat behind them, and then they get more and more calls for these, these speaking gigs.

   25. DMDavid Mamet39:37

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan39:37

       And they wind up making a lot of money, and they, they make the discourse extremely toxic. So instead of having conversations about the history of it, then it starts being all people are racist.

   27. DMDavid Mamet39:49

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan39:49

       All people have biases and Black people can't be racist, because they don't have power, and racism is only a thing that white people can ... Which is ridiculous, right?

   29. DMDavid Mamet39:59

       Well, yes.

   30. JRJoe Rogan40:00

       Uh, uh, and, but, but there
10. 1:06:07 – 1:27:18

    Welfare and incentives: safety nets vs. dependency, community charity vs. bureaucracy

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:06:07

       Do you believe in any sort of a social safety net for people?

    2. DMDavid Mamet1:06:09

       Of course I do.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:06:10

       So you believe in welfare?

    4. DMDavid Mamet1:06:11

       No. Well, no. No, no, no.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:06:13

       You don't?

    6. DMDavid Mamet1:06:13

       Well, wait a second. I believe in some sort of a social net. Listen, Social Security started out as an interim program to deal with the elderly who didn't have any say- savings during-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:06:24

       Right.

    8. DMDavid Mamet1:06:24

       ... um, uh, during the Depression. So now we have all of this money paid into Social Security. Social Sec- it's not there anymore. It's all been spent. So the only way that Social Security can function is to, uh, indenture the future. Unemployment insurance ex- uh, existed at the beginning to help somebody who'd lost their job in the period before they got the next job. So now it exists to keep somebody on unemployment ins- insurance for two years so they don't work. I... You know, if I was a kid and, uh, and that, that's all that I knew, I'd do it too. You know? The Aid to Dependent Children started to help mothers who didn't have babies or didn't have, uh, uh, uh, a wage earner around, that they were young, they were single mothers, they didn't have, uh, a wage earner around. So then s- it became evident, two things, that the more children you had out of wedlock-... with no man in the house, the more money you got. And the only way you could keep on getting that money was if the man was out of the house, so the men left. Now, this is not specific to the black community, but it's endemic. It's the same thing happened in the Jewish community. When the J- my grandparents, um, generation came over in the '20s, about a third of the men just left, including my grandfather. They just couldn't take it anymore. They couldn't take the shock of, uh, immigration and the new language, and they just left. And so my dad was raised by a single mom in the, in, in the Depression. That's not a good way to... He did very well, but it's not a good way to, to, to, to bring up kids. So when you got no man in the house and women having a lot of babies because they get more money, you know?

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:08:12

       But do you think they're having babies because they get more money, really? Do you really think that people, like, maybe want... Well, what percentage of people are actually having babies just to get more money?

    10. DMDavid Mamet1:08:22

        I don't know.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:08:22

        And what percentage of people are just making poor choices?

    12. DMDavid Mamet1:08:25

        Uh, w- I don't know. That's a very good question.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:08:27

        And the thing is, the, the idea is, I think, that for- first of all, for the children in particular, it's not their fault.

    14. DMDavid Mamet1:08:34

        Of course it's not their fault.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:08:35

        You know, some old we-

    16. DMDavid Mamet1:08:36

        But here's the thing. If, uh, uh, here's the thing. If there's no father in the house and if there's no community in the house, what are the, especially young men, are gonna do? They're gonna seek out a community, right?

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:08:49

        Right. This is where gangs come in.

    18. DMDavid Mamet1:08:49

        They're gonna call, it's called a gang. They're gonna s-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:08:51

        Right.

    20. DMDavid Mamet1:08:51

        Of course they are. I would and you would too, if that's the only thing that they know.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:08:56

        Sure. Sure. Yeah, it's the only thing that gives you a sense of community.

    22. DMDavid Mamet1:08:57

        Okay. So now you look around and you say, "Well, wait a second. The inner cities, there seems to be more crime." Well, there is more crime, 'cause there's more gangs, right? It's not that the people are depraved or it's not, uh, that's not racism to say so. It's true. It's unfortunate, but, but it's, but it's true. So what's one way that you turn it around, is you let the people in the inner cities choose their own schools. Because the teachers union has always sent the worst teachers to the black neighborhoods, always. And they're still doing it, right? So if the school is i- i- is, has the worst teachers in the world and they're teaching the young kids, you know, "You've been put upon and you're a victim," you're perpetuating the death of the inner cities. When Trump comes along and says, "You know what? Let's stop that. Let's, let's, let's, let's have school choice. Parents should be able to pick where their kids go to school. And let's incentivize people to put a industry in the inner cities and give everybody a job." So the parents, uh, the, the, the Democrats say, "No, no. Terrible idea. That's racist. How dare you say that? No, no, no. Parents shouldn't be able to pick where to put their children to school." Well, w- what if they pi- what if the parents make the wrong choice? But if the c- parents can't make that choice, the kids are gonna be raised on the street to a large extent. Not that they can't get out, but it's gonna be very, very difficult to, for them to get out.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:10:20

        So I'm still confused about your position on welfare. So do you think that welfare should exist? Should people have welfare?

    24. DMDavid Mamet1:10:27

        Well, I don't know. Here's the thing. Rich kids are all on welfare. College is basically welfare.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:10:34

        How so?

    26. DMDavid Mamet1:10:35

        Well, they say to the kid, "I tell you what, I'm gonna spend $70,000, $80,000 a year. You go to this elite, uh, university." "And what are you gonna learn there?" "I don't know, study film, uh, study diversity, study si- study s- study some soft thing, have a good time." Right?

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:10:50

        Right. Mm-hmm.

    28. DMDavid Mamet1:10:50

        So the kid gets through there and he doesn't want... The onl- now the only society he knows are those society of, of the well-to-do liberal kids.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:11:00

        Mm-hmm.

    30. DMDavid Mamet1:11:01

        What's he gonna do? Is he gonna join the military? No. Is he gonna join the forest service? No. Is he gonna become a cop, a fireman? No. Is he gonna become a plumber? No. Is he gonna become increasingly a doctor or a lawyer? No. Because he's sp- 'cause he's raised in this idea that work is a mistake, that property is theft, and that error, that, that strife is error. Right? 'Cause he's never been tested. He, you know, he, he grew up in these elite schools, whether they're th- the public schools in an elite area or the private schools, and they filled his, his head with trash. H- he can't leave that society because-

Episode duration: 2:57:50