microscopes. you know, the microscope is a big 17th century invention. it is women have the upper class is getting preparations and slipping them under the microscope. some of these tools are very expensive. a microscope is an extraordinarily expensive outlay of money. science becomes something that the educated and indeed want to be a part of. that is when you move into the enlightenment. everyone should have an opportunity to learn about the bodies working and the universe is working. i'm not sure where that takes the spirit of think the whole specter aspect is there. one who has gone and seen body world. if you take a look get the internet, all the different ways you can see surgeries on you too. we all have bodies and questions

and. we want science to be accessible. i'm not sure i answered your question. ..

follow booktv for interviews and scheduling updates and to talk directly with authors during our live program. twitter.com/booktv. now on booktv, david sirota examines the cultural landscape of the 1980s arguing the social and political mores set the stage for the military is a canned narcissistic america. it is about an hour and a half. >> thank you. can everyone here me? here's how it is going to work tonight. thank you for being here. i am going to give a presentation about my new book "back to our future" which you can see right there. nathan and i will go back and forth on a few questions. i asked nathan to be here because some of his work has been an inspiration for some of

my work so i appreciate you being here. and we will take questions from the audience but before we begin i want to do my own thank you. i want to thank "in these times" for organizing this at the university of illinois of chicago for hosting us here. i want to thank c-span booktv for covering this event and i want to thank nathan and all of you for being here and being interested in this book. the name of the book is "back to our future," how the 1980s explain the world we live in now. to make this fun i have included a trivia question, trivia contest to see if you can answer the trivia questions as we go through this. the overall thesis of the boat is as the subtitle says, the 1980s and specifically both the

political and pop culture of the 1980s still informs the way we think about the world today. it should be pretty obvious and i will start with the first slide. this took forever to make. all of these slides took forever to make so hopefully you will like them. it should be pretty obvious to anybody that the 1980s -- let me turn this on. the 1980s is back. here are some examples of how the 1980s are back at least in part, culture. we have top gun. they are remaking top gun. have rambo, just remade rambo. i won't read them all. ron, the 18, gee i joke, hulk hayden -- hulk hogan, the lakers and celtics in the championship,

apple was big and went away for a while. it should be pretty obvious that the 1980s is back and not just because of nostalgia. a weird coincidence, not just a coincidence that 25 years ago almost to the exact week and certainly the exact month the united states military was bombing libya and the world was wrapped with attention about a nuclear meltdown at chernobyl. those things happen almost exactly 25 years ago to the month. as much as this is pop culture some of it is very real. what i argue in the book is the

popular culture of the 1980s, the iconography of the 1980s in many ways has inspired the way we look at real world events and how real world actors behaved today. we have the main character from top gun replicated by george bush quite obviously. you have rimbaud in afghanistan. you have a war in afghanistan and the way we describe it is rambo in afghanistan. obviously gordon gecko becomes bernie madoff and all the rip-off of the -- artists on wall street. the evil guy from drawn, only half joking, mark zuckerberg. the 18, the idea of the private

contractor that you have to hire to fix your problems for you is is some ways our reliance on private contractors and how we think about private contractors and the evil guy cobra in g.i. joe was a very clear illusion to islamic fundamental terrorism. what i argue in the book is the images, these stories became powerful in the 1980s and end sorry because of certain structural changes in our economy. and i told nathan i was going to do this. i stole one of the cover graphics of his book to highlight how this happened. an argument in the book is things changed in the 1980s in a way that made the story line and

iconography of the 1980s stake in a way they never had. so here are some examples. there is your graphic. the 1980s was the first decade most americans have a tv, vcr and cable system and almost half had video games in their homes. the 1980s was also the time of the rise of synergy. these were connected. you see products across multiple platforms. you see stories about multiple platforms. there is mr. tea cereal and and et commercial for the happy meal. it is an ideological story and we will get into what they are. the ideological stores were being told in multiple platforms in multiple venues in a country more saturated with that medium than ever.

you also had total integration by 1980 -- by 1983. fifty companies controlled most newspapers and movies studios so you had an entire architecture for the first time where the stories of pop culture and politics could be sold to us and in particular to children in a way more integrated than ever before. here is what i mean by a land of confusion. this is a long story in the boston globe. tv and movie characters can shape how we look at real world events. fiction can shape our perception of the world even more than reality and especially among children. we learned that since the 1980s and what is important in addition to the synergy and

integration from the 1980s is a lot of pop culture was beginning to ripped straight from news headlines. this is a quote from a video game executive in the 1980s to highlight what i am saying about that. take anything remotely in the news and make it a game and here are some examples. these are 1980s video games. the point is to say not only do we have an integrated top-down instrument to sell everyone particularly children about surge in story lines, but many entertainment products actually stealing from real world headlines to blurs the distinction between reality and

fiction. the first chapter in my blood look at how it is played out and revised and change our views of the 1950s and 60s. i would argue, they would acknowledge that this is the battle that framed our politics. everything seems to be the 50s vs 60s and i don't think it is the actual 1950s versus the actual 1960s. i argue in the book is the 1980s version of the 1960s versus the 1980s version of the 1960s and these two characters, what we were told in the 1980s about the 1950s and 60s. so let's start with marty mcfly. let's think about the story line of the movie back to the future. one of the most popular movies

of the 1980s. total cultural touchstone. here is the story line of michael j. fox. he is a teenager fleeing modernity and what does it look like to marty mcfly? i don't know if we can hear the audio. is the audio working? i don't think the audio is working. can we see if the audio can work in here? i will try to get through it. maybe it is on my computer. can you hear that? can you hear that? >> what do you think?

>> okay. that is modernity. where does he flee to? he flees to this idealized version of the 1950s and this was not the only movie that was doing this. this was dirty dancing, music that was happening with the the revival of rock and roll music, the outsiders, billy joel, hoosiers and even the superman movies were about 81950s idea of mitropoulos. have bidets and what comes out of this is the ultimate warrior on behalf of the 50s, ronald

reagan. out to the 1980s create the 60s? basically making fun of the 1960s at a time of hippies who were not realistic about their aspirations and sort of ridiculous and this television show family ties is one of the best viewed television shows in history. a funny story about family ties, the show was designed to be asia that idealize the parents and i interviewed the creator of the show who said when we showed it to test audiences they were more enthralled with the conservative characters.

here's how it framed -- >> is this a permanent addition? if it is i am getting on my bombs with people to throw pillows. >> we had this hanging in our door room at berkeley. >> a little outdated? >> the slogans surge different but the concept is the same. >> i meant the concept. >> don't you worry about the fact that there are enough bonds in the world to destroy every living creature and wipe out life as we know it? >> i have bigger things on my mind. >> he is one of the neighbor's children. >> you are so predictable. every time one of these ex hippies those printing and from yesteryear -- >> there is the key line. this is the fulcrum of comedy in the 1980s when it comes to

generational, the. the 60s are ridiculous and to be laughed at and the 1950s were a great time of unity, of patriotism, all of the cliches that dominate the way we talk about the 1950s and 60s today of a cliches dominate our politics and this is echoed in all sorts of cultural products. you listen to what they say in the big chill, they are absolving themselves for leaving behind their 60s ideals. this becomes a major way we talk about the 1916s in the 1980s. how does this play out in our time? you have all these products that come out of the 1980s that continue the glorification of the 1950s.

when i talk about the 1950s i am talking about the end of world war ii to the jfk assassination. when we talk about the 60s we are talking about a 60s from jfk's assassination through the 70s. and the brands idealize it. this winter's, and in the 60s, what we have done in the 60s is come modify the 60s in to fund things that take out all of the politics and idealism and principles and these are just some examples. note to respect to these examples. i love some of these examples. these play out in politics. this is where it gets interesting. when i say the 50s and 60s i'm

talking about 1980s conception of them. 1988's presidential election you have the aristocrat george h. w. bush running against a first generation working class democratic candidate. what is the tactic to defeat the democratic candidate? the aristocrat turned himself into a picture of the 1950s. if you read his nominating speech is how he grew up in a shotgun house, grandson of a center. the picture of american aristocracy who turns himself into this. how does he take down the democrat? black burning. the image of the supposedly unpatriotic 60s and turns him into this. how does it go in 1992? we have this out of touch president who doesn't even know what a supermarket scanner is versus of guy -- this is a picture of bill clinton on the

end of the 50s at the pinnacle of the jfk camelot situation. george bush tries to turn himself into the fighter pilot, the brand of the 50s and he uses allegations of brand draft cards and protesting the war to make america see bill clinton as this. granted that is bill clinton. in 1996 it plays out again. you have bob dole be able to consummate washington insider against a conservative democrat and his tactic is to turn himself back to the 50s and say that bill clinton is as liberal as the presidential image of the 60s to turn bill clinton into this. granted that is bill clinton. in 2000 again it plays out again. you have the frat boy aristocrat george w. bush running against

an actual b and more veteran and it becomes this. he turns himself into this. he cites al gore's 60s seeming interest in the environment to turn al gore into basically a 60s grown-up yet be. so this continues to play out. a little bit of trivia. some trivia questions. to make it fun. what was the name of the song patrick swayze performed on the dirty dancing sound track? i have three questions for each section just to quiz you. what famous actor played the course in the big chill? christopher reeve, harrison

ford, alec baldwin or kevin costner? no yelling out. and here is the third question from this section. what city is the outsiders sit in? omaha, tulsa, amarillo or topeka? i will give you the answer at the end. the second chapter and i will go through three chapters of this and we will have a discussion. how the 1980s deifies the individual. this is obviously an important

issue. we are in chicago and our am sure there are a lot of jordan fans out there. this chapter focuses on michael jordan but that image becomes this in the 1980s which is basically e race from this context and becomes this. this is one of the most famous images out of the 1980s in branding history. to use michael jordan as an example of how we deify the individual in a way we never deified the individual before, this is what was said about jordan the 1980s. he has gone in disguise with michael jordan. chinese kids listed jordan and joe and law as the greatest men in history. washington post called him the most famous man on earth. fellow nba players referring to

jordan as jesus in nike's. this is an example of how in the 1980s we started deifying the individual who could soar above his team and this gets further from michael jordan because it becomes this image. doesn't matter is michael jordan any more. so this becomes i argue a cult of the individual. this is a time when the self help industry continues to explode and we see in popular culture the movies and television shows how the individual is a savior of society. societal institutions cannot save society and to itself. here are some examples of these iconic cultural products that say individuals can save

everybody. they save everybody, this is my favorite line from the 1980s because it is so preposterous. >> individual guy blows away everybody to save the entire situation. this becomes this. >> michael jordan. the best way in the universe is the vicious gum. >> think about this commercial which is one of the most famous of the 1980s. it says not only should an individual be worship but there is honor in being the worshiper. is deifying the idea of worshiping the individual. what does it mean in real-world terms beyond michael jordan? the 1980s becomes the time when

we see individual gurus as our savior's. religious gurus, ceos, individual ceos will save companies individually on their own. of pro winfrey becomes somebody who can say the name of a bull or product and it can be sold to millions of people who don't ask many questions about that. howard stern, rush limbaugh, the celtic -- self-help industry, the 80s, think about what the self-help industry is it focuses on the sell. what does this look like today in our politics? the deification of the individual? the politics started with a lot of thing that came out of ronald

reagan's administration. one example, the idea of the unitary executive comes out of ronald reagan. anything is in the national interests. the nation looked with concern when no matter what the president does is legal, couple years later ronald reagan was saying this to great fanfare and in our presidential politics this metastasizes into stuff like this. you have george bush and nobody blinks an eye when he says god wants me to be president or he says i am the commander, somebody wants to explain to me why they say something but i don't know anyone an explanation for anything. also becomes barack obama. we have similar examples. this is a direct quote. i am a better speech writer than my speech writers and i know more than my policy directors

and i am a better political director than my political director. here are the 80s coming at you. when a staff -- you are more plush than michael jordan he says give me the ball. these are just examples but i highlight this because of much of our politics today is about saying i won't asked a citizen questions. i will not ask questions about what i am being recommended. i will simply say if my guy or my guru says i should do this then that is what i am going to do because i have been talked through so many parts of my culture that the individual be eddie is the person to follow. i can outsource my mission to the guru. a little more trivia. what film was spike lee's first feature film? she has got to have it, do the

right thing, malcolm x or color? what is the name of jack burton's nemesis in big trouble in little china? mr fuji? what famed singer performs owed to america before apollo creed is killed? aretha franklin, tony bennett, david brown or share? let me get to how we go from the cult of the individual to the cult of narcissism. how do we go in the 1980s from saying the individual guru is to be followed and listened to to the cult of focused on me? if you have the dos above the

rest of us how can you also have a culture that is saying you can be yourself, the superhero? watch this commercial. ♪ >> the brilliance of this commercial is the putting together of images of regular people with superstarnes. watch this one example from this commercial in slow-motion. that is a regular kid playing basketball going up for a layup and the immediately becomes michael jordan dunking of basketball. the idea probably -- it was listed by fortune magazine as number 2 or three most enduring slogan of just do it.

not only are there great individuals that soar above institutions and you can't trust institutions but only individuals, if you will yourself you can be michael jordan in whatever you are doing and the phrase is just do it. .. eyesight this, this movie was wall street making fun of or trying to question all of this, but this was questioning this kind of spirit at a time when so

much of the pop culture was saying the american dream just doing it as an individual means making a lot of money, it means making a huge amount of money. that becomes the american dream in the 1980s and again these are just a couple of examples. ♪ there is tv, same thing, dallas. dynasty. and even for kids, sober spend. just doing it needs accumulating a huge amount of wealth. that is the definition of the american dream and the 1980s and lifestyles of the rich rich and famous of course. let's put some data behind this. this is the percentage of

americans at the same time this is happening who say they belong to a local club or organization. 1985, 15% of americans say they are engaged in some way in the civic organization. by 1995, that number is almost cut in half. that is a huge decline. here is a study of the top gold of college freshmen, an animal study. this is the metric being very well off financially, 1980, 62%. by 1990, 72%. put this up against the data about what college freshmen were saying that they wanted to get out of college other than money. so there is being very well off financially. that is the line you just saw and here is developing a meaningful philosophy of life. watch this number.

1980, 1990. it goes from 62% to 45% at a time when the culture and when our politics of course when ronald reagan is saying millionaire ceos are "heroes of the 1980s." alright, a couple of more trivia questions. who wrote lifestyles of the rich and famous? robin cole court, robin leach, robin ventura, piers morgan. which real-life tycoon gave a speech that inspired gordon gekko's greed is good or ration? donald krop -- donald trump, ivan boesky, michael milliken. what was the principle commodity being speculated in trading places?

wheat, soybeans, pork bellies or frozen concentrated orange juice? what was montgomery brewster's job before he inherited 30 million bucks. extra points for somebody who knows the name of his employer. minor-league a slow player, janitor, limousine driver or a bartender? hang on we will get to the answer at the end. this is the last section. this is the section that is most near and dear to my heart. the idea of going rogue. so we have gunther have the 19 '80s deifies the individual. we have gone through how at the same time it is deifying the individual it is saying you yourself can become a michael jordan. so how then to explain what the institutions, what government for instance is still doing well? if you are saying that the only thing that can be done well is through the individual how do you explain the regular mundane things that government is doing well? you can't really deny them.

>> i am not a role model. i am not paid to be a role model. i am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. parents should be role models. just because i dunk a basketball doesn't mean i should raise your kids. >> now, in fairness, he is my favorite basketball player. i grew up in philadelphia and i really couldn't stand michael jordan because every time they played michael jordan, they owned him. just get that out of the way. this commercial does come in the early 1990s and in my book i defined the 1980s as the reagan era all the way through to about 1992. this commercial and bodies with the nike executive called the idea of the outlaw with morals, the idea of the rogue, that you can explain the way things happen in society well in

institutions as either the outsider or -- force the institution to do something or somebody inside the institution went rogue, with all this against the institution and that commercial of charles barkley is the ultimate idea of the outlaw with morals, a guy who is saying, who is really yelling at you, almost lecturing you saying i don't follow any rules and nike made a market out of this. these are the key nike icons other than michael jordan that they focused on as the outlaw moral, prefontaine, john mcenroe, berkeley, bo jackson, andrew agassi and deion sanders are just some of the examples. the idea that to go rogue, to go lawless, to go against institutions and societal norms is a good thing and explains how good things happen in society.

and it gets echoed in tv. magnum p. i, hahn solo. think of the last name upon solo, hahn solo, right? one, lone. loan. highway to heaven. you need the weird traveling hitchhiking angel to save you from the problems your government won't fix. the equalizer. spencer for hire, moonlighting and look at this. this is the fall guy, the stuntman turned bounty hunter on the cover of a children's magazine. this is a children's magazine. hardcastle and mccormack, and the like and it becomes, it gets echoed in real life. appears the rise of the guardian angels. remember that in the 1980s? one of the big news stories in the 1980s is the barry gets case which is all about this. ♪ and europe you have that shows like this. this is knight rider.

listen to the intro to this purpose be knight rider as shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. >> this is the fourth most popular show among children in the 80's. ♪ >> a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless in a world of criminals who operate above the law. >> okay, so think about that. a young loner on a crusade to fix the problems that your government and your society won't fix on its own. and it is echoed also in the dukes of hazard. listen to what it is saying. just a good old toy. never meaning no harm. ♪ been in trouble with the law since the day they was borne.

>> okay, so not only are they fixing problems but they are actually in trouble with the law or fixing your problems. they don't mean any harm. they are in trouble with the government should trying to picture problems. the ultimate example of this, and my favorite example of this because it is so egregious and this is the most popular program among kids two to 11 years old, when it was on in the mid-1980s. let's take a look at what the a-team is saying. >> in 1972 commando was sent to prison by a military course. [inaudible] today still wanted by the government they survived as soldiers of fortune. if you have a problem and if no one else can help you, maybe you can hire the a-team. >> alright, so let's dissect

what we are being told here. what kids, 7 million kids aged two to 11 are being told every week. >> in 19728 commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. >> lets think about it, what is the crime? what is the crime they didn't commit? they were ordered by their own government to rob the bank of hanoi. somehow that was going to solve the vietnam war and somehow robbing the bank of hanoi was going to end the vietnam war. when their commanding officers killed -- is killed they don't have any proof they were ordered to rob the bank of hanoi so they are sent to prison by their government. the government is very evil. the government is ordering them to do ridiculous evil things and they are incarcerated improperly. here is the next line.

>> these men promptly escaped from a massive -- maximum-security stockade. >> so the government is so inept they can't keep these people in prison. what other way would to escape a maximum-security prison then promptly and you escape to a thriving los angeles underground, the government knows your rough geographic location and they can't find you. >> today still wanted by the government they survive the cultures of fortune. >> so again they are still wanted by the government, government of that can maintain a maximum-security prison are shut down a geographically confined underground and obviously can't catch them and they survive as soldiers of fortune. here is the last line. >> if you have a problem, if no one else can help you and if you can find them maybe you can hire

the a-team. >> okay so what is the saying? no one else can help. here are services that the a-team must provide in their episode because the government can't. these are literally from the show. they conduct high-level military operations to rescue a hijacked 747 what they're being chased by the government by the way. they bring a rogue cia unity justice. they also are protecting small businesses from larger bowling by violent competitors including two sisters from a soda factory, an upstart cab company and a construction company and of course they rescued a kidnapped too many to count. this is the key part. if you can find them. who can find the a-team? farmers,, church groups, and for foreign african country that needs its relatives rescued.

rick james. [laughter] hulk hogan and boy george. they can find the a-team. who can't find a-team? the combined forces of the united states national security state cannot find a-team. so what does this say? this makes the government look like this. probably the scariest scene in any movie as a child. this is what the government ends up looking like two children. this is probably the most memorable movie for children of the 1980s. this is e.t.. watch the scene. this is really crazy. why aren't you knocking at the door? why don't you just knock at the door?

watch this. ♪ so that is what the government looks like two children in the 1980s and so how do problems get solved? what is the culture telling children about the ways problems get solved? they tell children that this is the way problems get solved in society. >> did you see it? >> we got it. >> what you have there is what we refer to as a noncriminal repeating -- [inaudible] >> the a way to solve the problem is to hire the private for-profit company at any cost even an exorbitant one. anybody who has been watching

politics over the last few years knows that this is so much of what dominates the way we think about politics today. and that is that we think of, we hear so much in our political rhetoric that the government can't do anything right, that the only people who can be trusted in our society are the private contractors and private for-profit corporations. this continues to dominate our debate. this is the basic thesis of my book and i want to close by telling you, so you have the solution of the private contractor but then you also have the solution of the road, to go rogue from within. this is the final point i want to make about this because we hear so much about going rogue, the maverick. this came against straight out of the 1980s. so much of the iconography of the 19 '80s saying that the way the problems get solved are by people inside the government who defy the laws.

and here are just some examples. and the ultimate line that epitomizes this ethos is this line from lethal weapon two. >> just then revoke. >> a cop unilaterally saying that i will break the law and order to solve society's problems. and out of it comes real world examples. this is really the last image i will leave you with, is this becomes a real spirit inside of our government. when you read for instance ali north's testimony it is all about how he was going rogue on behalf of the american national

security. so, i realize that is throwing a lot you and i'm going to talk to nathan about how all of this has stuck in whether all of that has stuck but my fundamental argument in this book is that for so much of the culture, so much of the pop culture that we thought was not important, they didn't get critical acclaim in the 1980s, so much of it was reinforcing a lot of what we know about the politics of the 1980s and a lot of what frames the way we think about so many issues today, and i know it is easy to say that entertainment culture, especially non-critically reviewed entertainment culture a.k.a. schlock like the a-team, like the dukes of hazard, which by the way love both of those shows. deceased sea to say they are just locks but these are sending powerful messages to 80s children who have become today's world shaping adults. and i will leave you with the last couple of trivia questions

and then i will give you the answers. what was michael mike's name before he was shot in the face and nursed back to health by the foundation for a long government? reichel smith, michael keaton, michael long, michael kidd. what college do both charles barkley and bo jackson attend? university of alabama, bob jones university, auburn university, clemson university. what u.s. stages the fictional hazard county supposed to be in? mississippi, florida, alabama, georgia. i have to give you random cliff clavin question. what famed game show did cliff clavin appear on? tic tacs go, press your luck, jeopardy or the price is right? the name of the song patrick swayze performed with she is like the wind. what famous actor played big

chill? kevin costner. what city is the outsider said in? tulsa. spike lee's first film was she has got to have it. the name of jack burton's nemesis is david lohan. what famed singer performs an ode to america before apollo creed is killed by -- ivan drago, james brown. robin leach hosted lifestyles of the rich and rich and famous. ivan boesky was the guy the speech was based on. frozen concentrated orange juice was the commodity in trading places. minor-league baseball player montgomery brewster was for the hackensack bulls. and michael long was michael knight's name before he was shot in the face and reconstructed by right-wing foundation called the foundation for long government. auburn university charles barkley and bo jackson attended. georgia was the state where dukes of hazard supposedly takes place at cliff clavin appeared and lost on jeopardy. that is my presentation and now

nathan i and are going to have a little bit of a conversation. so thank you for listening to that. [applause] here is what we are going to do. the format of this is, because i have maybe overwhelmed you/ warranty with the presentation is i am going -- nathan and i are going to basically trade-off questions, three questions easton than we are going to take questions from you. i want to just reiterate that i asked nathan to be here because a lot of his work was instrumental in both inspiring my work and i drew on a lot of his work, and i should mention of course that he is the author of two books, joel mentioned it before. he is the author most recently the book called my euro flops and before that a book called the big three wind, excuse me and memoirs brought to you by

pop-culture. there is a visual aid in nathan is actually going door to door selling the big three wind. >> seriously, a mark of desperation. i am literally bring in my book to people. >> which the book world is not an easy one. so do you want it to start? why don't i start. i'm going to ask nation at -- nathan a question and he will ask me a question. my question for you is some by the way this is the first time i've been -- met nathan face to face even though he has been on my radio show. i've laid out why i think we are fascinated by '80s pop culture of why is it still in doors. what he thinks '80s pop culture right now seems to be so everywhere? >> i think there is a tendency in our culture to have incredible nostalgia for a period of 20 to 25 years hence so i think we haven't really gotten a -- think they are

confusing. i actually wrote a piece for stanton, that captured the '90s and it wasn't a very good piece because we hadn't really got me that beat on the '90s yet. actually been out to this point no one has had a bead on the '90s. no the 80's. as you were saying in your presentation, sort of the 80's version of the 50s and 80s version of the 60s are the ones that have kind of had resonance within our culture and i think this again kind of falls outside the purview of what you wrote about that when i think about the 50s versus the 60s one of the films that comes to mind are of course 1994, the bush era there where i feel like a lot of people got the idea of jow the 60s, that was in all those hot crazed people eating up their girlfriends and selling crack-cocaine and doing all these things and yet again this

deification of not just innocent but of gullibility, stability. did you just blindly accept the people told you, you will be fine. if you challenge people, if you figure out a way that the world might work than a dozen currently then you will be screwed and commit misery for yourself and for everybody around you. >> just as a follow-up to that, do you think that the 80's doesn't have, at least in my mind, and everybody has got a different view of what the 80's was to them but to my mind the 80's doesn't necessarily have super positive connotations to a lot of people like the manufactured idea of the 1950s state does. so, if the 1980s is something that we don't necessarily remember as universally fondly in the american psyche, if there

is anything like that, as the 1950s why is it still sort of a source of fascination right now? >> i think it is kind of a double thing where the 1950s, and the 1970s and 1960s is sort of like this cultural warfare and there was a movie that i saw a week and a half ago. i thought about you and your book when i saw it, called music never stopped. it is interesting film. >> i don't see movies anymore. i've the 4-month-old baby. >> i would have scoffed indignantly at this film a few years before because i was lot more cynical but it is based on oliver sacks true story and it is about this ridiculous 1980s. it is about this father and son in the 1960s. the father and the sun had son had a falling out because the son wanted to listen to that

crazy hippie music and listen to the grateful dead. in the father was like, why do you go to college? and then you know the kind of have this -- and 20 years later they reconnect but the sun has a horrible medical -- being unable to form good memories. he reconnects with who he was with the music from the 60s and the grateful dead. this interesting thing where the father who was thinking as music is something that took his son away from him, something that tore them apart, akron only -- acrimony and discord where there was harmony before. there is this interesting instance of the 80's version of you know, burris of the 60s kind of fighting and then sorted

the 60s culture coming ahead. it is refreshing in part because that is apparently what happens and when you see that narrative playing out in movies and television it is generally the 50s that kind of conservative vision of who we were and what that means today that kind of plays out. so to turn the question on you, what you think certain medias have such resonance in terms of current popular culture and in terms of our current entertainment and our their current politics? >> i think, to want to oversimplify my vote. it is not a simple argument that i am making, and by that i mean, i think that some of it is coincidence. i think you can look back and say look 25 years ago almost to the month the libya bombing and a nuclear meltdown, some of that is coincidence. some of us for not facing the challenges that were so clearly presented to us 25 years ago.

speech or promote interest in the book. you you and your buddy gadhafi and your t-shirts wacky gadhafi. but otherwise. >> but otherwise setting aside all of that, i do think there is nostalgia. i think branding is easy if you stick with brands that are our genome so you resurrect the 1890 resurrect karate kid because you are a hollywood that is banking on those brands having some sort of cachet with people who have already seen them but i also think that we haven't been telling ourselves yet any different kinds of stories that the reason why for instance ronald reagan is remembered as the "transcendent president" is because many in the storyline and abetted in this popular culture that he was reinforcing and politicizing, introducing

his electoral politics, those were necessarily the storylines that were dominating and embedded in american politics until the 1980s. i mean, i am not idealizing before the 1980s, but you can look at the empirical data, that data point i showed you about college freshman when many college freshmen, when you see those data points where college freshmen say their goal is to make a lot of money by going to college and they are not interested in developing a meaningful philosophy of life, that i think says that before that point, there was a different number of assumptions embedded in our culture that were changed in the 1980s, and i didn't have this data up here but you can see with militarism, the most amazing stat that i found in the entire research for the book revolves around militarism and how in 1981, 50% of americans according to gallop

polled said they did not have basic confidence in the military. by 1989, 85% of americans said they had full confidence in the military and it was the most respected institution in the entire united states and it remains at those levels ever since. so, militarism itself is solidified, the idea of the military as a central institution in our society is solidified in the 1980s and so i think to answer a short question in a long way, think the reason part of it is that we are still speaking the language in the 1980s and different storylines haven't really been introduced to offer up any other kind of way that we see our country. >> right and it is interesting ronald reagan being the great communicator. he had a headstart on telling these narratives that would stick and withhold and we look

at him getting an office in 1980. you still have the long specter of war or cambodia, all these illegal things we did and you would think that would give the military a black eye and that would give a sense of hey, and gee maybe we are not always on the up-and-up. maybe we were lying to you egregiously in ways that harms people. ..

reagan gives a speech about the vietnam war believe personal the vietnam war was a just cause, which was portrayed as a huge campaign mistake in 1980 at a time 50% of americans had confidence in the military reagan gives a speech in the midst of a 1980s campaign saying vietnam was a just and noble cause and the reason we lost is because troops's hands were tied behind their back and demoralized because when they came home they were spat on and have a chapter on whether that is true or not true but by the time he leaves office, couple weeks before he leaves audience he is almost the same speech saying vietnam was a just and noble cause and we have to let our troops win and that was a line repeated not just by ronald

reagan but by rimbaud. his first line in rambo ii. >> if you haven't seen it you need to experience it. is buddy osama bin laden. it is astonishing the change between first blood which is an incredibly dark, heroin anti-war movie that basically keep the character of john rambo being a solitary lunatic with his my shattered in vietnam and when something relatively normal happens, he turns into a complete lunatic and goes on amasses killing spree and this is depicted as mentally ill. they give up on us and abandoned us and we could have won the

work. and in the sequel is turned on its head and all of a sudden this isn't like dilutions of -- this is the hero. this is james cameron and sylvester stallone, waycross' between jesus and ronald reagan and he will suffer for our sins. he won't guy for arsons because that is not what they do in 1980. by dying -- let the other person die. so you see this complete 180. the meaning is reversed. >> by the end of the 1980s reagan gives the same speech. just cause and noble cause and let our troops when and there's not a single headline about it. not a story, nothing.

a huge campaign outburst, this may lose the election for us and eight years later it is the same thing. is not a headline or story. nothing. you continue to see this in the way we talk about our military today. if we focus in manila terrorism and why the militarism sticks with us today, there is very the unquestioning of the idea that politicians major jobs is simply defer all power to the, quote, commanders on the ground. how many times did you hear george bush say that? don't make politicians decide this. this separates us from other countries. the original save our constitution has the ability to control the military. in the 1980s the whole idea from a rambo to ronald reagan is we

micromanage politicians or tie the hands of troops on the ground. this is the way we talk about war today, and when it comes to libya. barack obama is saying i won't taliban commanders to end the war or what to do about the war. it is my job to let them do what they do best it is an and difficult story we until selling ourselves, a news story from the 1980s we continue to tell. and i want to ask one more question because you are a popular culture expert more than me. what do you think, if there are any, the key differences between -- this is a big question -- between the pop culture of the 1980s and today. is the popular culture of the

1980s more or less politicized or ideological than the popular culture of today? >> part of it was when i was a child in the 1980s i was relatively unaware of things. that is one of the reason these messages are powerful because you don't think of the unconsciously. they are some textual messages. the message of the 18 is not don't trust your government. is the eighth is cool and mr. tea is cool and they have an awesome car. i was not cognizant of it and part of it is a cultural war has heated up the lot. we have a violently -- conflicting sort of ideology in terms of things are a lot more

divisive than they were in the 80s and there was a consensus back then and it is because society is so fractured. everything is incredibly contentious. so anything that is not incredibly pretenses -- >> i have been trying to think about this, am i looking back at the popular culture of the 1980s a i can believe what it was saying, and -- these are highly rated television shows and movies that millions of children are watching. i wonder if we are more aware now as a society. if you put the 18 on right now and give it to preteens, i would

like to believe our society is one silver lining that is a ridiculously radical message. >> i did start to have an inkling of stuff. i was never a big fan of john hughes. there are so many of them. hy aided ferris b 0's day off because being from chicago i felt the idea of that was

basically chicago -- this kind of community basically sort of a plaything for wealthy white guy. and despised home alone because i felt it was class warfare. literally it was class warfare and i was identifying with the poor put upon abuse burglars who were trying to provide for themselves. i live there partially. here is this boy doing nothing sunni the giant home which cost $3.5 million, or $7 million worth of special effects that would be required to do this. he has a giant home. to how did his parents deserve this and he tortures for people

who are trying to redistribute the wealth. i wanted joe patchy and the other ones to for murder him. it would not have been as popular. i wrote this really pretentious term paper when i was in college about how home alone and class warfare were for the same thing and to protect some things we did not deserve and were not merited and demonize these other people. in that sense i had a little bit of that. there are messages here and no one really spoke about that and issuing an article about national lampoon it was very counterculture and did crazy things in the 1980s.

let's make fun of people for being different and things like vacations where they go into the port neighborhood and the one black person with the history of john hughes movies. >> when i was sick i was watching that. ever want to see a movie that is all of this in chicago boils down into one sort of pristine example, you have to watch adventures of babysitting. [talking over each other] >> if you leave the suburbs you will get murdered by black people. >> that is right. i want to bring it back -- [talking over each other] >> what i am nervous about, having mentioned as the young child, is this stuff still has embedded as it was foreseen to

be in retrospect back then? do you think that we are more aware of the messages? >> these work because people don't think critically. they don't necessarily process these messages. the government is not the solution. they cause a lot of problems. the answer to this is to think critically and really think what messages are being presented. what is the text and the subtext. it is just the level of reading and it is exponentially more huge. and it came a out on video and

now i feel such an excess of things is overwhelming. people aren't thinking as critically as they should. >> we will open it up for questions. if you have questions for me or nathan you can fire away. we will bring the microphone around if anyone has a question. >> thank you. the question is for you. your presentation, a lot to the think about two on. it is a very -- male-dominated presentation. i was wondering was that intentional, you were talking about a male dominated era or is it that you are guy and growing and the 80s these were icons

that fascinated you or is it that in the book there are more women examples in this time period that played a role or all three? >> i make the point that there were two odd things happening in the 1980s, odd that they were happening at the same time. which was much of -- most successful ratingswise, popular culture products for children were very male-dominated. popular culture in the 1980s was incredibly chauvinistic in a certain ways. the heroes. one thing i want to say is it wasn't necessarily more chauvinistic than in the past because it was leave it to

beaver and that kind of stuff. it was particularly relatively chauvinistic because it was being presented at a time when the 1980s was a time when women were making great strides. there were a lot of great strides in the women's movement. one of the things i came upon in the chapter on race in my book about the cosby show was there was a lot of back and forth in many circles about whether the cosby show was good for race relations or bad for race relations. what my chapter focuses on was what the white audience seems to demand since the 1980s of african-americans in public life. one of the things that came out of the debate over the issue of race was that the cosby show mitigated -- at least this is what some of its defenders said,

mitigated the criticism of why is it showing the more economically typical african-american experience? the criticism was mitigated by people who said it is showing women in very commanding roles, almost hero roles. i cite that as an example to say in the book i address the idea that so much of the most iconic popular culture of the 1980s remains persistently chauvinistic and strangely at a time when women were making real strides in actual society. >> talking about the sort of burning your draft card and for me some of that is a way that

allowed the reactionary -- is specially in terms -- i remember as a kid thinking why is the kid getting a bad rap when they wanted men and women to be equal? they want equality for races and sexes, why could people object to that? what happens was in the 1980s we allowed a caricature as this shrill bra burning extremist who hates men and practice witchcraft and sacrifice their children to the devil and other people feel -- so that was part of it. that whole idea of broad burning is a complete myth. that never happened. you have a narrative like that. it would be silly if they think the big problem is the government holds up their brassieres and not the fact that

it is society. that very silly narrative persists because it gets us off of the hook and forces us to confront the fact that our society is messed up in a lot of ways. >> a comment on the topic which is at the end of the day, hollywood, newspapers as you have shown as our own by 50 companies across the country that are controlling the current population's perception of the world. in the end -- in the 80s they were not thrilled by the fact that by mid 1980 there were more women lost than men lost. they are not going to detect

that because they are running the show. >> a very quick point about that because i have been asked this a bunch of times. the pop culture of the 1980s creates the 1980s or the pop culture of the 1980s are reflection of the 1980s. did ronald reagan create the 1980s or was the reflection of the 1980s? in some ways it is both. in this way. if you interview people who make entertainment products all they want to do is sell. they sell tickets. they don't care how they sell tickets. so they are trying to meet the the population in the shortest of shorthand where they parked -- think the population is. a lot of popular culture is an archaeological carbon dating to use a terrible metaphor of where people think their world is

because especially in the network television where -- network television only had four five channel that had to appeal to the widest audience. the typical screenwriter of the 18 was not i want to sell a right wing message to america but i want to get to america as quickly as i can in as profitable way as i can. whether they were right or wrong the ratings suggested they were right. there's also a symbiosis. you are absolutely right. in assuming where people are, those assumptions are made, that i assume you are here so i can't challenge you with anything. i don't want to challenge you with anything that might make you frightened even if what i am challenging you with israel. there is really this symbiosis and it is a truism of entertainment products that it

both shapes and is a reflection of the shaping. when it came back to the issue of women's progress in the 1980s, it was in part both we don't want to challenge the audience or scare the audience with what is actually happening. the white male audience with what is actually happening. we don't necessarily want to -- we don't want to scare off people even if we are telling the truth. >> and what narratives have residents and put their thoughts and feelings into. men in their 20s are the worst generation in the history of the world. everyone from 20 to 29 spend all their time eating and she knows

and playing video games and waiting for the next transformer's sequel to come out. these stories howard men are pretty terrible and exceeded -- the story is men talking and doing worse than ever. it is not a story of female progress. it is they but did as men talking. that is interesting. we stick to this narrative about homosexual men are the only people who matter. >> good evening. i am wondering what gave you the idea for the book to focus on the 80s? was it the dramatic change in people's attitudes? the freshman attitude that was

startling and the militarism of the society? was that what gave you the idea to study the 80s as an attitude from -- for the period or did you see that in 80s coulter yourself? >> the not very sexy answer to that question, i can trace it through when i had the idea for the book. i was sitting at home on a saturday night like a loser. that is what i do. i sit at home and watch reruns. and ghostbusters, i am convinced it is on somebody's television somewhere in america at all times -- right now someone is watching ghostbusters. at least one person. i was sitting there and there was some seen on and i tweeted out a line on my twitter --

giving you too much information -- some line that if you are not watching ghostbusters, i put out half a line and got flooded back with people finishing the line and adding did you see this part or that part and it is 2009 at that point. this was 1984 or 1985, it is a quarter century old movie and other people are not only watching it while i am watching it on a cable dial of 500 movies but quoting back the movie at me and there is something really weird about this. account was number of movies. in thinking about what i was watching what is so important about ghostbusters? what is the story of the ghostbusters?

as i said in the presentation the story of the ghostbusters has become the story in so many ways of this release superheated political moment. it has residents right now. sing about the story of the ghostbusters. not to diagram it too much. you have a terrorist attack on a new york city -- ghosts. the government can't deal with it. the military can't deal with it. the city shuts down. who you going to call? you are going to call the private for profit company. the reason i think the movie indoors is not just because it is funny but because to many people it makes sense. so the question is why does it make sense? if a terrorist attack actually hit new york city this is the opposite of what would probably happen even today in a reagan,

radicalize politics. even today most likely the first response would be the government and the military. even though that is not what politics tells us and not what 1980s popular culture tells us. when you think about that and think about other things where it took me from their, what really got me was what has been bothering me for a long time, in the bush era and the obama era which is not just militarism but what really irks me and has for the last few years, out of all of the issues in politics, this absolute difference to military officials, the idea that we should never question military officials, never questioned military decisions, that our elected officials's job is to never questioned the pentagon. when i went back and started

thinking about this and george bush's quote, he was more explicit than obama when he said i won't politicize any war and i won't get in the way of our troops. at one point he made some comment that reporter asked him is this war going to end? i won't answer that question. that is a question our commanders are going to answer. that is so fundamentally upsetting to me as an american, as somebody who is happy to live in a country that is supposedly different from other national security states, whenever the military says is what goes, i started looking at that and thinking back to why does this make sense to anybody? it should make sense to any american who vaguely knows what the constitution is. i started thinking about why before the iraq war or even during part of the iraq war did

not even flinch as much? when you start peeling it back it is because -- the back to that. particularly children but even adults get so much of their world view not just for real world events but from stories. that is a long answer. >> somewhere i got the impression that our culture and politics repeat every 30 years. essentially you have the 60s is the 30s and 90s is the 60s and 80s is the 50s and outside of that one of our options out of this is dominated by media companies is the internet. eventually that kind of change

out of that. a child of the 80s, grew up in the suburbs, in ventures in babysitting kind of impression and other things, i loved the 90s. there was some independence and the web came out of that and maybe we have a way out of this which is what advertisers want more than anyone. >> you get the final answer. the only thing i want to say, the question is a 30 year cycle. when i first started writing this book or thinking about writing the book almost didn't write this book because if i had come to the conclusion that that was going on, that is not interesting. things recycle and fine. that is a piece of paper, not a book. what this book and this

presentation -- what there is in a lot of the book is real data about what change in the 1980s and what has not changed since then. that to me is the most troubling kind of thing, when you look at our views on the military from 1980 to today, there is a sharp curve and then a flat line. when you look at kids priorities, a sharp line towards money and a flat line. when you look at sociologists on narcissism and indulgence, narcissistic personality disorder there is a sharp line up and then a flat line. it is too easy to say everything that is old comes back again. the political message of this book is what i am troubled by is

that flat line and that there hasn't been at least to my mind anybody introducing, i should say any but the dominant narrative has not changed from the 1980s. moving into politics for change and what we get, i will change within the dominant narrative. i will be less militaristic. but i will still be military. i will be less greed is good but still seawall street ceos is good they make as much money as they can. what i am troubled by without giving away the conclusion of the book, the reason i wrote this book is it is not just the old 30 year cycle. not just the back-and-forth of american politics. we are in a stasis and until we realize what got us to this stasis was a departure from where we are going and realize

it is a change. we can't realize necessary that we have a choice of a different direction. >> back to what you were saying about the internet. the internet and social networking's sites are fascinating. on the one hand they are tools that bring people together. on twitter -- it is very interesting they used the word follower which is very hierarchical. a sort of profit like quality. sort of being enriched by my thoughts. is a way to connect and bond to people. it is interesting how quickly that come down to personality and facebook is an example of the system that was the superstar and over the course of the last year and a half it became a superstar.

it became an overachiever. he was able to crack the code and he was time man of the year. the person of the year with you and the life of the pandering and also tapping into this narcissism and i am the most important person in the world and a lot of that comes back to the 1980s and there's something very appealing about that dream of social mobility but there's a concrete reality and somewhat more ominous complication. >> i want to thank everybody for coming. i appreciate everybody coming. i would like to thank "in these times" for organizing this. i want to thank nathan rabin and remind you he is going door to door.

if he doesn't come tea or dorr be sure to get his book. one of the inspirations for my own book, not to be much -- the people i'd to follow. thank you for coming. [applause] >> for more information visit david sirota.com. we ask what are you reading this summer? here's what you had to say.

>> send us a tweet using summer reading to let us know what you plan on reading and e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> julian assange book tea he is sam dorrance, publisher of potomac books helping us to preview the fall 2011 books that are coming out. what is potomac books? >> an independent publisher, family-owned. we have been publishing since 1984. we publish books about political

science. we published books on international relations, insurgency and counter-terrorism. and sports. >> we want to talk about two books in fall and 2011. i want to talk about this one. >> bob kemper was with the chicago tribune at the time of the 9/11 attacks. during the course of covering the response of the bush administration to the 9/11 attacks he became disturbed about the response of the administration to the families of the victims and became very close with many of the family members of 9/11 and the various organizations and groups that they formed and he has followed them closely for the past ten

years. so the book is the story of what they have done individually and collectively to get a commission to investigate, to get compensation. everyone knows the grooves don't often agree with one another. it is quite a remarkable story that has not been told in this way before. >> that is right before the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the other what we want to talk about is endless annamese. >> it is rath . >> it is rather remarkable memoir by a man live in a comfortable life who left his law practice and joined the fbi and was send to georgia and mississippi chasing people who were either bootlegging liquor

or stealing heavy construction equipment and reselling it. then he moved back into the new york area. in 1993, everything change with the attack on the world trade center first bombing. his story tracks the evolution of the fbi from what we traditionally think of them as being going after bake robbers and the mafia and so forth to an organization working on tracking terrorists, putting pieces together. he went to afghanistan, was interrogating the taliban, he went to yemen and was part of the team that put together the clues regarding the bombing of the uss cole and did some work in guantanamo. a rather remarkable story of what the fbi is doing today

rather than in 24 years that he served in the beginning. >> that was endless enemies. you have been listening to sam dorrance, publisher of potomac books based in the washington d.c. area. >> this weekend on booktv in reckless endangerment, talking about the role of fannie mae and freddie mac in the 2008 financial collapse. henry kissinger on whether is possible to form a true partnership, joined by monica crowley. look at the complete booktv schedule at booktv.org. sign up for booktv alert. >> it has been an interesting and fun life and i don't owe any of it to the feminists.

i suppose the reason for that is sarah palin. cannot resist attacking sarah palin not just because she is a republican and a conservative but because she is a successful woman. she has a cool husband and a great career and making lots of money. she is by any standard a success and they can't stand it. acid in their wounds is she is pretty too. scope of feminists don't believe women can be successful in the united states. they think women are oppressed by the patriarchy. they are held down by been men and they need the government to rescue them and give them more advantages. that is a very unfortunate but you never hear them talk about really successful women. margaret thatcher and condoleezza rice. what about all the wonderful

women who were elected last november 2nd, 2010? it turned out they were all republicans. they were all pro-life. that wasn't what the feminists planned at all. they do not recognize success. one of the reasons i was able to be polite to the amendment was they did not believe i was doing what i did. they conjured up conspiracies like the insurance companies were financing me or some other nonsense like that. this ideology of telling young women you are victims of an oppressive society is so unfortunate. if you wake up in the morning and believe that you are probably not going to accomplish anything whether you are a man or a woman. many of the real feminists, most of them think that abortion is the litmus test for being a feminist. but what -- one of the new

feminists wrote in the washington post a few weeks ago the definition of feminism is that we are under an oppressive patriarchy and they have to overturn it and stop it. that is what feminism is. it is also not true that they are working for equality. the feminists are for empowerment by the female left. they are not empowering all women. they want to make an alliance with the left wing so it is the female left that has become so powerful to ally itself with a the obama administration. when the feminist movement got underway in the late 60s and 70s they called themselves not feminism, they called themselves the women's liberation movement. you have to ask what did they want to be liberated from?

they wanted to be liberated from home, husband, family and children. so you find they were encouraging women to be independent of men. that is why they were big supporters of divorce and they looked upon marriage as a very confining role in life. gloria steinem said that when a woman gets married she becomes a semi non person. betty friedan said the life of a wife and mother was living in a comfortable concentration camp. that was their attitude. the social degradation of women was really a major goal of the feminist movement and it wasn't -- they were not using the argument that it takes two in comes to support the family. that wasn't why they wanted to get her out of the