Brexit, which is the departure of Great Britain from the European Union, a vote that takes place next week. The story has been compounded and troubled by the tragic assassination of a young member of parliament in her history. We talk to John Micklethwait about the brexit vote and the tragedy on the streets of leeds. And now you have the murder of jo cox. A tragedy completely unforeseen. And the strange thing about it is, throughout this entire campaign, we had sat there always imagining if there was a terrorist incident or something very ugly happened, it might be something involving muslim extremism, anything like that, which would probably help the leave people, in this case probably because the person who killed her seems to be someone on the other side shouting these words like britain first. The conventional wisdom is that probably will help the site. The british have a record of not liking extremism. Rose we conclude with Cass Sunstein, a law professor and highlyregarded legal expert. His new expert is called the world according to star wars. I think what the movies got at were there were these myths and religions and multiple cultures that spring out of peoples minds as well as traditions and george lucas gets at them and gives them the all american trips. Rose the 51 diplomats protesting american policy in syria asking to do more, the brexit vote, and the terrible death of a member of parliament in Great Britain and Cass Sunstein talking about star wars. All of that when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin with the conflict in syria this evening. 51 mid to highlevel state Department Officials signed an internal memo protesting u. S. Policy in syria. The letter calls for targeted military strikes against the assad regime. It says that a strategy of diplomacy first cannot succeed if damascus is not pressured. Secretary of state john kerry advocated a more aggressive approach to syria but president obama thus far resisted wading deeper into the conflict. Joining me richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations, former director of policy planning for the state department. Nicholas burns, former undersecretary of state for political affairs, professor at the Harvard Kennedy school and visiting professor at other great universities. The New York Times. 51 diplomats in dissent, strikes on assad, breaks with obama, the memo saivmentd big story . It is, for a couple of reasons. Number one, weve had the dissent channel since the vietnam war. We want to encourage our career diplomats to be creative and speak up when they see something they disagree with. Its a viable channel. Richard and i have worked on this over the decades. What theyre speaking about is the enormous frustration inside the u. S. Government and i think in many circles, in new york, washington, in other places over s been entire risk averse in the middle east. As i understand it, reading the article, these people arent saying we should put a big American Land army into syria, that would be catastrophic, but i think they are suggesting, and i certainly believe, weve got to play our traditional role. Its mainly a diplomatic Leadership Coalition role that we organize turkey and the arabs and use the forces in the middle east, russia, iran, syria rose but you are arguing while president obama has had Foreign Policy successes, the middle east has been a failure . I think his policy has failed in the middle east. Heres why its important to the american people. Strategically this crisis in syria and iraq because the United States units the two countries in violence, its important for our longterm economic, political and military interests in that part of the world, because look at the neighbors of syria, israel and lebanon and turkey and iraq and jordan and this war that has killed several hundred thousand people and made 12 million of the 22 million syrians homeless is now metastasized in most of those countries and the fact that we vacated our normal diplomatic role and allowed the russians to play the lead role i think is a big mistake. Rose well come back to the policy. You used to run the dissent channel. The whole idea was to encourage vices advocating policies that were not the adopted policy of the administration or the department of the day coming out of vietnam, was used during bosnia and the fact its used now is not a surprise because what the president has done has taken american policy pretty far in one direction, its been extremely risk averse and in one way we paid a price for a president in some ways did too much in Foreign Policy. George w. Bush in iraq will be critical in history for what president obama has not done in syria repeatedly, the gap between rhetoric and policy and what he deans in places like libya. Rose when you say that, am i wrong in believing ive heard you say before, we have to be very careful about our commitments in the middle east, we have to be very careful, and i see lots of risk in doing many of the things that critics of the syrian policy want us to do. Absolutely. And i think one of the lessons is you dont want to go in with a large military footprint, hundreds of thousands of people, you dont want to go in to change society. I dont think our policy should have people in syria riding our federalist papers in the translation. Thats not something the United States should smith commit itself to. T, there has to be a connect between what you do diplomatically and what you do on the ground. President obama paid a repeated price for the disconnect. John kerry, i dont know care how many miles he puts in, he cannot succeed if theres a gap between what hes trying to create through diplomacy and whats happening on the ground. Rose im not a diplomat, but at the same time putin came in, supported assad, assayed gained ascendcy of territory and influence and toughened his negotiating position because he had a better military position. Sure, the fact iran and the russians have come in, have shifted the balance of power on the ground, so no surprise assad has stiffened his position, no surprise these talks arent going very far. The waysic thrust, we can argue the military details, but the basic thrust saying the United States has to be prepared to do more militarily both missile cruz strikes and indirectly through australiansing people to create a context where diplomacy has a better chance of working. That seems to be Foreign Policy 101. You get into trouble when your ambitions are great than what youre prepared to do and thats why this administration has gotten into trouble. Rose the administrations original purpose was to get out. For more than five years, there has been a gap between americas stated aims and americas preparedness to actually act. Rose so looking at today, 2016, in june, what is possible . I mean, lets assume that there is a reevaluation for lots of reasons and that this has impact, and theyre not talking about 200,000 American Forces or anything like that, theyre talk about strikes, it seems to me. Whats possible and can they really achieve anything significant that will affect the balance by strikes . Well, let me start here i think john kerry is right that, ultimately, this huge conflict in syria where the society has been blown apart, riven by territorial ideological factions is going to end at the negotiating table, but i dont think its going to happen this year, because the negotiations have now come to a halt. Why . Because the Syrian Government will not negotiate with the opposition because they want a total victory over the opposition and the russians are backing them and i think the russians are stringing us along. So whats possible this summer is for the United States to say were going to use the our power in the nations to get humanitarian quarters, food, medical supplies into aleppo and into the aggrieved cities where thousands, tens of thousands of people are starving, number one. Sometimes you have to threaten in diplomacy. Rose you do. I think what we should do is threaten and say were going to establish turkey, n. A. T. O. Countries safe havens on the jordanian and turkish borders to protect refugees and you will not come into that zone. Rose and if you do were at war . No, i think russians would respect it, as weve respected russian air power. Neither of us want a war, but we havent exercised that leverage, and the reason id start there before airstrikes is the large problem is, of the 12 million syrian homeless, more than half the population, 7 million are homeless inside syria. It is the most profound damaging humanitarian conflict in the world today and we have been silent on this and taken in 2,300 syrian refugees. Historically rose everyone else has taken more. Every administration has taken at least half global refugees since 1945. One is to take innocent people and encourage refugees to come back. You need an air cover over it and Ground Forces in a humanitarian effort. Well provide air, the, too would provide ground. Rose peshmerga would be there. They have other goals, but thats the second area which is what are you going to do to change the military balance. Id say combine targeted strikes on Syrian Military forces, send more American Special forms to assist local arabs, you want to give them more arms. We have been unwilling, for example, to provide them with air defense weapons. Lets provide them with serious air defense weapons so if russians or others want to go to afghanistan, theyre going to have to take sphroord risks. Only if we do that do we have a chance of improving negotiations. Even if syria and iran and russia dont want to negotiate, we will improve the situation on the ground. It seems to me the United States has to be prepared to help others, to do more itself, and either you get a better negotiating outcome, but if not you still get a better situation on the ground and that to me is complementary to create humanitarian zones or corridors. This stabilizes the situation, may not be an answer to syria. Rose whats the tragedy to take out assad . Is it to take him out militarily . Is it to have some leverage so you can negotiate with him, which he doesnt see now, so he basically within the last ten days said i want to regain all of syria. I dont think we can be kingmakers in syria when we have no American Embassy there and very few other people on the ground. What we can do, however, as richard suggests, and this was plausible in 2014, 20 13rbgs you could come back to targeted airstrikes to take away assads capability top use air force to use barrel bombs, terrify civilians and drive them out of major cities. That was the purpose, as i understood it, of the red line in 2012 and 13. We should have, not go after assad and take him down because then you have responsible for the chaos that ensues, but weaken him. I think we never will get back to effective diplomacy unless you build up the opposition, give them the arms they need, the defensive weaponry they need and also go after assads air force. Rose but let me ask this question this is the state department, these are our seasoned diplomats who feel the u. S. Is not using diplomacy like it has in its history and using it to gain leverage. Where is the military in this . Is their opinion the same as these diplomats . The most important thing to say about diplomacy and this administration is its white house centric. The fact you have the state department doing this is a sign of how much is controlled out of the white house. So the state department has lost a lot of strength of its voice. The military is professional. Theyll send more special forces do, more trainers and air attacks. I think theyre totally comfortable with that. Rose do they have the opinion if asked to do a lot more they would which would make a lot of difference and by that we do not mean sending in 200,000 extra troops . Thats the most important thing and they think about the readiness. They tend to get uneasy when you ask them to do more for political reasons than military. Military knows how to take territory and destroy things. They get nervous when they say we want you do do more to influence decisionmaking because thats coercive force. The military likes clearcut missions. If you tell us to take out 25 of mr. Assads air force, ayeaye, sir, we can do that. Heres what it will take and heres the cost and so forth. Thats the sort of thing that i believe that we should be doing and, again, it seems to me it stabilizes the situation on the ground, it may actually teeup diplomacy to go forth and move people against assad at some point. We want to change the political calculations ideally of some people in damascus where they see assad as a liability. Rose but there is also this putin expressed this to me with his conversation with him in moscow, lets assume you get rid of assad. What do you have there and what are the possibilities and are we going to look at i. S. I. S. Roaring down the main street of damascus . Well, that was the argument nt assad to go without andnt aftermath prepared for. We learn the hard way in iraq, libya and other places that you need a dayafter plan. But weve had lots of time and we have lots of time. Assad is not going to disappear in an afternoon. Youre not going to talk about a strike to take him out. Youre talking about promote ago political dynamic so if its something in the alawite community, a transitional government, what youre not going to have is elections and everyone getting together again. My guess is youre looking at a syria not a National Country in any sense of the word of decades to come but a syria of parts. In the mean time, we could stabilize that, slow down the civil war and come up with a post assad leadership in the alawite part. For me thats a realistic nearterm goal. Rose my assumption is the russians would not be necessarily against that. The russians heres where john kerry has been correct and visionary, this is going to end at a negotiating table. The rurchtions i think would not be averse to this kind of solution if their own interests could be protected. They want a foothold in syria, so you have to help them get there. Thats what diplomacy is about. The way to do that is have weight on your side and be physically present. We are fighting an air campaign against Islamic State in syria and iraq. The Islamic State is a pernicious group. I support the air campaign. Were doing nothing against another actor, the Syrian Government that is more destructive. The idea that youre trying to arrive at a positive conclusion eeventually in syria with air power through the Islamic State but refuse to act against an equally powerful and pernicious actor, doesnt make sense and thats where either this administration or the next one has to go. Rose what has this dissent accomplished just where it is now . Were having the conversation, its in the front page of the New York Times. Its brought syria back in r people like you in thisople, program, that there are tremendous consequence force United States if this continues to go the wrong way from a humanitarian strategic perspective. When youre on the front page of the New York Times and remind people how, in this particular case wrerks failing in our effort, it does concentrate the minds of all of us to think of other ways to be successful. It also says the Obama Administration has seven months to go. You cant just run out the clock. There is still time to have a serious policy change, so you dont leave what is a total mess. Rose do you think the president is motivated to do that at all . Based upon what ive seen in terms of his actions, what ive seen in terms of the conversations with you, with Jeffrey Goldberg and others, no. I think what he wants to do is put this in a box on his desk thats too hard and leave it for his successor. What i like about this dissent cable, it puts pressure on him, the fact were having this conversation, the people in whasht will be talking to him, forces him and the interagency staff to confront this issue. It wont go away. Rose i pulled you way from a conference in the council on foreign relations. Thank you for coming. Well be right back. Stay with us. Rose we turn to print, brexit and the death of a member of parliament. Jo cox, a member of British Parliament died yesterday after stabbed yesterday in leeds. Thomas mair was arrested in connection with the crime. He is called a dedicated supporter of the National Alliance and american neonazi organization. The killing occurred one week before referendum on whether print should leave the European Union. Police are also investigating whether the suspect shouted prin britain first. Its a party that favors leaving the e. U. Both the leave and remaining sides stopped campaigning in respect for cox. We are joined by John Micklethwait, current editorinchief of bloomberg news. Where was this heading before this terrible murder took place. Headin it seemed to be heading increasingly for leave. One of the best pollers in britain finally Just Announced he no longer thought it pretty likely that romaine was going to win and leave seemed to be doing better and cameron seemed to be unable to change the discussion and all the attempts, what they call project fear, saying if you leave europe, it will be a disaster, those didnt seem to be getting through at all and the british people seemed to be saying, we have been through this and it will be okay. And then this changed it. Rose the people who supported ar romaine were of wht demographic . The demographic is the big difference is the old will come out and vote but the young, there is always other things going on, and people were increasingly worried about whether the young would come out. And in the background, you have one other thing in raver ray main, which is why people genuinely thought remain would do well, if 10 of people are undecided, you go for the status quo and think im not being convinced i want to change and take this step into the dark. That was still the best card the remain people had but they were slipping behind in the polls. The leave people, depending on how you measure it, had a 3, 4rbgs 5 lead, sm something biller than that, sometimes. Rose momentum. Momentum as well and you could see it among the tory high command. The conservatives, a split with probably the majority saying they wanted to leave, the labor party traditionally remain led by the most far left leader theyve had for a long time but he, interestingly, came from that weird bit of the labour party which is against the European Union and hes never been a great supporter, is what is described as a tepid supporter. For the remain campaign to work, they wanted the labor voters to come out and the young. The labour was led by a man who in his speeches said theine union is a disaster, badly run and full of ghastly people that try to inflict capitalism on you. I probably stay with it. That actually wasnt probably the bestselling line. Rose but there are lots of people who made powerful arguments including you that this would have a terrible impact on the british economy, on the european economy, on the global economy. Very much. So i think there is arguments there. The difficulty for the people saying, look, watch out, were, to some extent, people exaggerating what the pockets were, but because you never quite know what theyre going to be, youre caught either way, it is entirely possible if britain does vote to leave which is still a distinct possibility, if britain votes to leave next week, i think the United Kingdom could well split up. Rose scots will say goodbye. The scots will almost certainly vote to stay in. Its possibly even if the whole thing votes to stay in, its quite likely the english will vote to go out, so that schism reemerges, and then inside the European Union, if britain goes, you begin to set off earthquakes there because you look at the germans. One hand theyre saying please stay to the british because theyre deeply worried about a European Union who doesnt include a reforming country in it. You have the french, the dutch already talking about having a referendum if the british leave. You have the problem if the british leave, it comes apart. The problem is thats the difficulty of what seems to be the fear factor. They argue too much for the fear factor . That and in some ways i always thought that was legitimate. If youre the people arguing lets keep it how it is, i think its reasonable to point out the the other side is taking a huge step into the unknown and the markets show this. You look at the market and the markets, the slightest sign of britain leaving the European Union and the markets get very frightened. Rose and now you have the murder of jo cox. A tragedy completely unforeseen and the strange thing about it is throughout this entire campaign we had sat there always imagining if there was a terrorist incident or if something very ugly happened it might be something involving muslim extremism or anything this case, because the person who killed her seems to be someone on the other side and shouting these words like britain first. The conventional wisdom is that probably will help the remain side. The british have a long record of not liking extremism. They dont like things. Rose revolutionary colonies and things like that. If you look at it, the people who are at the front of the leave campaign as Boris Johnson who makes jokes and nigel as well, the more it looks nasty and fundamentalist, the more possibly the british people will go against it. Thats the fundamental wisdom. The betle markets and Financial Markets have both rallied a bit which the horrible thing is at events like, this completely tragic, all the politicians on both sides of suspended campaigning, so theres no one trying to milk rose suspend for how long. I think people would start again on the talk shows t tomorrow. Rose so people look at this and say this is horrible. You know, this m. P. Killed in broad daylight, stabbed, shot, her assailant, they think, captured. Yes. Rose and everybody says, wait a minute, everything has to stop. Yes, i think, to be fair, one, its very shocking, particularly in the context of british people arent used to these style of shootings and stuff. It feels odd, in this case with a bizarre kind of homemade gun. Thats one side of it. The second side is i think it did actually hit all politicians. M. P. S are used to wandering around their constituencies. There was an element. Just before it the record had gotten extremely fierce on both sides. On the leave campaign, they had produced campaigns basically saying were going to get flooded by migrants you wont have anyone left. On the state side, George Osborn ratcheted it up, the chancellor and part of the remaining crew, saying we might have to raise your taxes immediately after you vote to leave. We may need emergency budgets. Both sides were squabbling and suddenly this thing happened and sort of a burst of civilization came through. Rose did you get the idea she was a wellliked member of parliament. Yes and proeuropean. Rose which plays into this. I think camerons reaction is completely genuine. And he and Jeremy Corbin have paid tribute together. Both sides coming together doesnt mean the leave people also denounced it. I think People United in the way politicians sometimes are when something that could happen to any of them happens to one of them. But underneath theres no doubt that the serious upony, the serious people who have either wanted to leave this project, you know, that there are people who spent years campaigning to leave the European Union and now everything has been thrown up by this one instant and, so, theres an element whereby the whole thing is stopping. We havent seen polls which take account of this and my guess is it would probably pull it back. Rose pull it back sufficiently. Thats what people think. A bit like the rise of donald trump in every single way people have found this very difficult. Tony blair last week for bloomberg, the interesting thing is you had a man fantastically good at winning elections in britain, won three elections in landslides. Its obvious, his ability to talk to cosmopolitans, slightly left of interest, pro european, progressive britain, is being upset about this because the people who are voting leave, its not just a small group of men in blazers. Rose right. Its a lot of people just saying theyre fed up with migration, all the things like globalization youve tried to sell me, i just want to get on with my life. Rose why do they think thats only a European Union problem . I think the European Union crystallizes a lot of these problems in the same way as here in america. Trump supporters there look at issues. Migration is an issue which is a cipher for a lot of other things. The European Union, thats a direct tie to migration because the European Union laws allow cheapers workers from the Eastern Union to come if and they have migration and ton terrorist act. And the European Union and Everything Else is the project run by elites and in quite a decent way. One of the reason why the European Union was set up, it was set up by elites terrified by populism in the 30s so they were never be very good at the democracy thing and thats another reason not to like it . What i rose what is the difference in the way britain and the United States treats guns . Enormous. If you own a gun in britain, you have to be visited by the police every two or three years and they check whether youre sane, they ask you questions, you have to get a character reference, i could use you, and you have to do them repeatedly. Its a totally different thing. Rose assault weapons . Guns which are designed to kill people are much less popular and used and, as a result, the police dont carry guns and so on, its one of the oldest arguments. Whats interesting in europe is the orlando shooting does seem to have set that off again. Its become another whats strange about america debate. Rose John Micklethwait from bloomberg news. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose Cass Sunstein is here, a law professor at harvard from 2009 to 2012. He worked for the Obama Administration, head of the White House Office of information and regulatory affairs. Hes also a prolific writer, authored more than 40 books, a columnist for Bloomberg View and currently the most cited american legal scholar because hes written so many books. His latest book a New York Times best seller called the world according to star wars. Star wars, a movie. It is New York Times best seller, currently number one on the postbest certainly wrist. Pleased to have him here at this table. Welcome. Pleasure to be here. Rose ill begin with the introduction. The human race, he says, can be divide into three kind of people, those who love star wars, those who Like Star Wars and those who neither love nor Like Star Wars. I have read parts of this book to my wife emphasizing those to me which seem especially fun. One night she responded with some combination of pity and exasperation cass, i just dont love star wars. You say in parentheses, i knew that, i guess, but somehow i forgot. There you go. What is it about star wars . Which is what this book is about. Thats what i spent many months on. I think what the movies got at was there are these myths and religions and multiple cultures that kind of spring out of peoples minds as well as traditions and george lucas and the saga gets at them and gives them kind of an allamerican twist. Rose right all about freedom of choice under difficult conditions. So he makes new and kind of modern and something that really resonates in america but elsewhere, thats what it is about star wars. Rose but help me understand this, have you been in love with star wars since you saw your very first frame or movie, or did you come to this at some later point in life . I think i was in infatuation with towards from the first two minutes and then it kind of fell to intense liking, and the love started in the last jeer. Rose how did the love start . I have a little boy who was taken by star wars. I thought, why have these movies become the saga of our time and how did this genius, george lucas rose why does it appeal to such a wide spectrum of age groups . Completely. You can see people who are four, five, six, people who are eighty and ninety and some of the 80yearolds are crying from nostalgia and some of the 4yearolds and 5yearolds have awe in their eyes, so you can connect generations, tiny ones to very old ones. Rose why is it magical . I think its the stuff of dreams and nightmares. Every little kid is kind of scared of a darth vader and theres an image of someone who is big and frightening and potentially cruel and every child has a dream of maybe a woman if youre like leia who will take care of you, or if youre a child, the idea of a gentle, befine, all powerful mentor like obiwan kenobi, thats the stuff of childhood. Rose but there is also a dark side. Absolutely. So every kid, i think, is scared of grownup anger and power, but also every kid is scared even more of his or her own anger and power, that that temptation each of us has, i think even at a very early age to do bad things because its what we want to do, thats something that is attractive but also terrifying to a child and to see it is cathartic, in the old sense, on the screen. Rose you say fathers, freedom, attachment, redemption are the core of the saga. Right, the four deepest themes. Rose freedom, attachnt, fathers, redemption. Right. So to speak of freedom, what the movies say and what the evil doers in the saga say, respect, the path you go, its up to you. If you want to be a good person tomorrow, or if you want to go back and save your buddy whos at risk even though youre a rogue and a smuggler, you can choose to do that. Rose thats biblical. It is a biblical idea. I think the way it resonates in star wars has a theme that is modern, it has to do with our specific culture, and the freedom idea is very closely connected with redemption because even if youre the worst person in the galaxy as darth vader almost was, you can be the one who restores balance to the force and save your soul. So that idea of redemption, i think for all of us, whether or not weve done something really terrible, we can choose in a moment to make amends with someone whos wronged us or whom weve wrokd. So the connection between freedom of choice at every instant and the potential for redemption, thats kind of the beating war of the star wars saga. Rose can i understand this without knowing lucas had a tumultuous relationship with his father. Lucas, you mean . Rose yes. The vast majority of people whove seen the towards movies know little or nothing about george lucas own personal struggles with his dad and they did get together. So its not necessary to know the biographical background, but it does, i think, enrich our understanding of how the tale became possible to know that his father could be a difficult guy. Rose you also suggest that everything much is destined and prophesied, there is also the power of agency. The movies are calling on an old religious theme that destiny kind of knows where the arc of the universe is going and its in control, and some of the most powerful and most wise figures in towards speak for destiny and prophecy. Rose right. But the movie rejects that. Yoda, who is focused a lot on prophecy, says difficult to see the future is. Rose i know. With his cadence. And there is a sense that the individual agent is the one who is ultimately in charge, not the prophecy. Rose you also suggest and its fascinating that there are certain prisms you can look through buddhism, terrorism, technology. All of them are there. So darth vader is rose and more. Absolutely. Christianity is there. Freud is very much there. Luke skywalker loses his mother and false in love with someone older who says you will always be a little boy to me, froms a freudian eco. Theres echo of the christ tale. There is a political theme of republicanism and the word is republic about vigilance against authority and that reading is there. There are crazy readings all over the internet, and though crazy, often ingenious and often lends itself to multiple interpretations. Somehow this cartoonish saga is able to have sufficient richness that, like shakespeare or james joyce, you can go a lot of places with it. Rose have you talked to j. J. Abrams about this . I have told him, i put him on notice that there is a book coming, but i think the last thing he needs is to be questioned by a law professor about what his intentions were. So he knows about it, but rose and what about george . Ive talked to him about american Foreign Policy, not about this book. Rose how could you resist . I think he goes about his life and probably a lot of people ask him what did you mean with rose including moi. Yeah, i met him at large party and i think someone mentioned i was writing a book on star wars and i think that did not make him extremely excited about talking to me. But he was informed i worked in the Obama Administration and worked on some of the surveillance issues rose and all of a sund had an interest. And he wanted to talk about that. Rose yeah. Ehes a person of great focus and kind of presence, and that probably helped make him produce these amazing movies but also helps keep him a very curious person. Rose hes a great friend of mine and endlessly fascinating. He loves formula one racing. His politics are beyond capitalism, even though capitalism has been hugely generous to him, hugely. And, you know, hes just one of the most fascinating people. And when you walk around any city, any country, they all want they bring these pictures out. Some of them, theyre going to sell because he signs them, put them on the email, because hes such a huge figure on, you know i went to taiwan in 2015 to meet with the Constitutional Court and the then president and the person who was certainly going to be the new president , as she is, and this was a policy and law visit, but everyone wanted to talk about star wars. This was taiwan. So i went into the big book store in taiwan and the first thing i saw was star wars characters. So the global reach of the saga attached to the power of the tale in attaching to myths of multiple cultures. Rose whats the connection between Human Behavior and culture . Well, culture often produces scripts that create kind of background music for our own behavior. So if we have a culture that has tales in it of, lets say, heroism of particular kinds of rebellion of particular kinds, our behavior will often be responsive to those scripts. Not that it will determine what we do. We might create scripts of our own, but the tale of the American Revolution is obviously an important factor in the behavior of so Many Americans of multiple different kinds. Martin luther king much more recently is kind of background narrative for many of the things that have happened in the United States in the last ten years even. Rose does a nation need myths . I think so. It certainly needs stories. It needs things that are iconic to organize aspects of reality that are other wise potentially chaotic. So you need something makes that disorder recognizable, and whether its a myth or an historic fact or a religious conviction or a novel or a set of movies, cultures greatly benefit from those. Never have a onetoone correlation do they . Always a degree of interpretation. The star wars movies which are subject to five reasonable interpretations and five zillion unreasonable ones, so whether we understand the American Revolution or what we think the cold war was about, how to understand mccaratyism even where we have a pretty good consensus on that was a dark tale. Rose sure. But there are multiple different renditions, so facts can be turned into two or three or a dozen narratives. Rose how did george lucas change as he went along writing star wars . Well, i think he changed most interestingly in the prequels which i think are underrated. Rose yeah. He got, it seems, more interested in historys arc and the personal tales of individual characters remained important to him, but the prequels have a lot to say about how democracies fall into authoritarian systems, and while thats in the original stories, that kind of Global Political tale is something that lucas seemed to be seized by, and i think they are an interesting and, in some ways, very shrewd though cartoonish picture of what happened. Rose there is a lot of christianity here. No question about it. Rose how is it expressed . Well, the beautiful scene at the end of return of the je jeds a scene of salvation about souls where darth vader tells his son he wants to see him with his own eyes. That itself had some biblical resonance. After that, luke says, ill not leave you, father, i have to save you. And annikan, the father says, you already have. Thats very christian, and its about salvation of souls, and in the end, of course, you see his force go, so to speak, and hes in the star wars equivalent of heaven. He gets there. Rose and the fear of loss as an emotion. Movies are intriguing about that, so theres a theme that the wisest person in the films nominally yoda presses which is a fear of the past or the dark side, this is a buddhist theme, that if youre afraid of loss, then youre going to be full of hate eventually and you will go to the dark side. I think that has psychological truth both for individuals and tie rants that fear of loss is often a source of where they rose fear of loss of power . Loss of power or loss of someone you love or loss of status, and all of these are in the saga. But what is actually the victorious concrete is that, fear of loss is what it means to be a part of a human big. If you fear a loss because you care about a friend, sibling or in the end a family member, thats the way to trying to side. In the end, the saga is deeply nonstoic. It says that the depth of attachment is the thing thats going to make you do the things that will get you to the right place. Rose we talked about mccarthyism, and i dont want to make the similar late sim, but at the same time could we look at the sequel and see things in america that would give the Major Political party to someone unlikely . Thinking of donald trump. I think we have things in our culture that are tremendous safeguards against authoritarianism. One is we have a constitutional structure which is proved robust across multiple challenges of individual persons and global. So we have a framework which is very tough on wouldbe authoritarian. We also have a deep cultural commitment to individual liberty on the one hand and to selfgovernment on the other hand, and to overcome these is really, likely hard. I think it is fair to say that whether you are hopeful about mr. Trump or very skeptical about mr. Trump, he does pose a challenge to longstanding traditions. Rose so he may appeal to some strain in you but, at the same time, challenge some values in you . Well, i think in terms of American Values as weve come to understand them, and this is pretty universal now in our country, some of the things mr. Trump has said are, lets say somewhere between fatal inconsistency and severe tension with those values, i think that is not unfair to him. Rose where is the tension . Well, the idea in our culture that you dont discriminate people based on their religious convictions. Thats kind of bedrock now. Of course, National Security is also bedrock. But we typically resolve that tension in a way thats respectful of religious pluralism even when it comes to control of our borders and with respect to our legal system, the fact that someone had a parent who came from another country, thats not in our culture indicative of bias or prejudice. So rose if you have someone who banned political reporters from the Washington Post at his rallies. Thats not normal. I think it is fair to say that this is challenging to some of our commitments. Rose you quote yoda, difficult to see, always in motion is the future. Aint it the truth . Both for individual lives and for our country. Rose lawrence casden. Its the biggest adventuremaking you could have for your own life and its true for everybody, its infinite possibility. Casden was coauthor of several of the star wars movies and his choice of absence of planning is at the heart of the tale that lucas and casden tell. Rose i just have to do this here wit are the table f contents episode one, i am your father. Episode two, the movie no one liked and expected flop becomes the defining work of our time. Episode three, secrets of success, was star wars awesome, welltimed or very lucky . Episode four, 13 ways of looking at star wars, we talked about christianitychristianity. Fathers and sons, relationships can be reformed. And destiny is about agency. Rebels, why empires fail, why resistant fighters and terrorists rise. Episode 8. Constitutional episodes, free speech, sex equality and samesex marriage as episodes. Episode nine, the force and monolith of magic god and humanitys very favorite tale. Episode ten, our myth, ourselves. Why star wars gets to us. Thats the book. Thats the book. Rose and i was going to look at it because its in the other book, what is it that makes you tick . Well rose is it the law . Well, i like thinking about how our legal system can be improved and how it got to the majestic place it now is, that it got there because to have the genius of James Madison and alexander hamilton, did it get there because of the constant work of we the people . Thats something that helps make me tick, at least. I like thinking a lot about how our government can be made to work better within our constitutional framework, how can we make our institutions thrive. Rose i want to show a couple of clips here, one is of george lucas who i said is my friend here. I want to look at clip number two, this is george lucas on this show describing his religious beliefs in the story of star wars. The whole thing in star wars was to take, again, ideas, psychological ideas from social issues, political issues, spiritual issues and condense them down into an easytotell story of those stories. The force basically came from, you know, distilling all of the religious beliefs, spiritual beliefs, go all around the world all through time, finding the similarities and then creating an easytodeal with metaphor for what religion is. Rose smart man. And he put a lot of that material in a form that could be accessible and be appealing to people who have very different convictions about religion and the human spirit. Rose as of early 2016, not that many months ago, the star wars fran chide earned about 32 billion. Of that amount 2. 65 billion from box office, 2 billion from books and about 12 billion from toys. The total exceeds the Gross Domestic Product of about 90 of the worlds nations including iceland, jamaica, armenia, laos and gaum. The book is called the world according to star wars, Cass Sunstein. Thank you, charlie. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Rose coming up on charlie rose, the Vice President of the United States joe biden talking about american Foreign Policy about american Foreign Policy and more. Anno ncer a kqed television production. Sbrocco and everybody sopa all opa