All the different animals, different branching points, different transitional nodes in the tree of life. And so i argue that if this method of investigation is giving us a true historical signal, we should get an unambiguous signal, one that is giving us a single tree that is telling us the story of one historical unfolding of life. After all, history only happened once. That we get so many conflicting trees, i think, raises question about whether the method is sending a historical signal at all. The other problem with this method of investigation is that it begs the question, it says that the degree of difference between two proteins or genes in different animals is an indication of how long ago theydiverged from a common ancestor. But that they diverged from a common ancestor is presupposed from the outset of the investigation. And its presupposed in all the algorithms that analyze and compare the gene sequences. So you cant use a method of investigation that presupposes a common ancestor to establish the existence of a common ancestor. Thats the argument i make in that section of the book. Host darwins doubt is published by harpercollins. Whats on the cover here . Guest thats a wonderful [inaudible] with all that intricate and beautiful structure from the dawn of animal life. Host how old that . Guest about 530 million years, maybe a little less. Host weve been talking with Stephen Meyer of the discovery institute. Thanks for being on booktv. Guest thanks for having me on. Great conversation. Paul cantor talked with booktv about the invisible hand in popular churl at freedom fest, a libertarian conference in las vegas. He looks at the themes of liberty and freedom that have appeared in movies and telephone shows over the past decades. Television shows. Host and now we want to introduce you to university of virginia professor paul cantor who is also an author. Professor cantor, before we get into your most recent book, what do you teach at the university of virginia . Guest i teach both in the English Department and in comparative literature. For example, i teach a World Literature survey course for the or fall semester, i teach a course called fiction of empire, people like Rudyard Kipling and all the books that came out the british empire. So a lot of different things. Also shakespeare. Ive written mostly about shakespeare. Host can you make connections between all of those authors you just namedsome. Guest oh, absolutely. Thats my profession. Host whats one of the connections that you make . Guest well, im generally interested in politics and how people perceive politics, and these things go all the way from homer to the american western. So i have an essay in this new book that compares the great trilogy with john fords the movie the searchers, and theyre both stories about revenge, theyre both stories that explore the boundary between civilization and barbarism. Im really interested in the continuity, how things change over time. But you can do wonderful comparisons when you take the same subject and look at a greek tragedy and an american western movie. Host well, your newest book is called the invisible hand in Popular Culture. What are you attempting to do with this book . Guest im examining the issue of free come in american poppe freedom in american Popular Culture, and im particularly interested in the debate between liberty versus authority. Take movies, television shows, some want more liberty, some want more authority. Its the great debate thats run through our politics from day one in the united states. Host so when a writer writes a film or a director directs one, are they looking at larger issues besides just an entertainment vehicle . Guest you know, i dont have a simple rule for that. Sometimes they are. For example, david mill chers television show, deadwood, and hes a very serious author. In other cases i think its more the luck of the draw that a show ends up coming up with serious themes. For example, south park, trey parker and matt stone, theyre real libertarians, and i trace libertarian themes in that show. Im open to any possibility. Sometimes the authors are deliberately doing what im saying, sometimes theyre not. Host well, when it comed to deadwood, what is the authors motive, do you think . Guest his theme . His theme is what he calls water out of mud. Hes very interested in the way social institutions develop spontaneously. He was interested in deadwood because this was a touch which for various reasons is outside any government jurisdiction. And we normally think that would produce anarchy, and it does produce a lot of violence, a lot of dangerous things, but what he wanted to show in that program is how people of their own free will and on their own effort develop institutions. So, for example, a mining town. Even in the absence of government, theyre able to establish property rights. Thats very much like john locke. I used john lockes second treatise of government to analyze that show. Im always trying to bring together these aspects of philosophy and high culture with things that we, i think, unjustly think of as mere low culture today. Host well, speaking of, pardon me, but low culture, youve written about Gilligans Island. Guest yes, i have. Host in a previous book. Guest yes. I offered Gilligans Island as a microcosm of american democracy and that it examined the various claims to rule which would stand out in america, wealth in the case of mr. Howell, the skippers military presence, the professors intelligence. And it showed that gilligan, the man without qualities, he really was representative of america and was the heart of the show. She havewood schwartz, the producer, was thrilled with that analysis and he, in fact, confirmed it. Said thats what he was trying to do. Host was it reflective of the era . Guest oh, absolutely. I was particularly fascinated going back and watching it to see how many cold war themes there were in it. There was an episode about russian cosmonauts, several episodes about missiles and the race to the moon. Its very interesting to see how these shows do reflect their time. Host well, back to your newest book, the invisible hand in Popular Culture, who is director edgar ohlmer . Guest he is one of those guys who was forgotten during his own lifetime and now has been brought back. He was a immigrant from the us a tohungarian empire. He made many, many cheap, bad movies. Hes, in fact, called the king of the b movies, but he made, i think, the greatest horror movie ever called the black cat, he made one of the most famous film noir movies, detour. And i use them as an example of how, in fact, pop culture is if contact with high culture. He worked with some of the great european directors like f. W [inaudible] and he ended up working in what was called poverty row in hollywood churning out cheap movies where they started with a title and made something up. And yet he made something of it, and the french film theorists discovered him in the 1950s and made a hero out of him. Host what about gene rodden bury and star trek . Guest well, thats a chapter thats actually on the tv show have gun, will travel. I made the odd discovery that gene rodden berry early in his career as a tv writer had written 24 codes of this wonderful episodes of this wonderful show have gun, will travel. And i went into it totally object i, and i wanted to see could i find anything of star trek in this series . It turns out a lot of the genesis of star trek is in that series. The hero in the show would go around the west and encounter these strange towns where he didnt know what was going on, and hed have to straighten them out. And that became the prototype of the enterprise going to these planets ruled by three accurates and evil dictators. I was very interested to see the continuity there. Host now, professor cantor, were here at freedom fest, a libertarian gathering in las vegas. The subtitle of your book is liberty v. Authority in american film and tv. Whats your message here at the freedom . Guest well, my message is that libertarianism can help us understand culture, including Popular Culture. I think for a long time Popular Culture, the study of Popular Culture was the excuse to preserve of marxism and generally the left. I tried to show that people with a libertarian perspective can have interesting things to say about Popular Culture and often find libertarian themes in Popular Culture, south park is the best example. I have this chapter which deals with its libertarianism. But i try to find ways in which a libertarian take on freedom comes up on our american pop culture. Host what about the western in general . Guest well, theres a perfect example of this conflict between liberty and authority. Some westerns like have gun, will travel treat ordinary people as if they cant take care of themselves. Would come into a small town, it was run by a corrupt mayor, a vicious sheriff, some kind of businessman, and he would straighten it out. And to me, theres a kind of a paternalism in that. I would contrast it with deadwood where the sense is people can take care of themselves. Theyre not at at a complete loss. I think the western has alternated between what ill call a hobbs perspective and a locke perspective. Hobbs thought left to themselves people will end up in a war against all. Locke thought people can develop societies, property on their own. I find it fascinating how that dialogue between these two great philosophers plays out in the american western. Host do you see examples in hollywood and Popular Culture of social utopianism and authority . Guest oh, absolutely. And also dystopianism, showing that utopia can turn out to be very bad. I talk about a lot of alien invasion films or tv shows, and many of them there was one called v that lasted about two, three seasons. Aliens showed up promising a utopia. Very strange, they were promising universal health care, blue energy and public works projects, and it got people very concerned that somehow this was a comment on the obama administration. But anyway, that show presented this as a kind of Faustian Bargain that people would give away their freedom for the sake of this material utopia. I look at that in a number of shows like fringe as well. Host who did you write this book for . Is this a scholarly book or a popular book . Guest well, im hoping its both. Et has a lot of footnotes and uses scholarship, but i have been told that i have the common touch and, you know, its basically about westerns, about flying saucer movies, about the about south park. And i hope that both audiences can enjoy the book. Host is there a danger that youre putting motives into directors and writers that dont exist . Guest you know, theres a danger, but i dont see the harm that would be done. I have an introduction that discusses the book method logically and explains why, in fact, a model of intention is a little naive. Very often we have the notion that theres a single author who must have everything planned out in advance. One thing ive learned about television particularly, but movies as well, is they are collaborative ventures, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Writers, we have the fiction that a tv shows written by the one writer. In fact, as with movies whole teams write these shows, and ive talked to some writers. They play off each other. They dont go into it knowing what theyre doing or having a full developed intention, but by the time theyre through, they have developed a work of art that has intentionality. Thats my decision. That may sound too scholarly, but i think a work can have intentionality without a Single Person having a simple intention in creating it. If it holds together as a work of art, im happy. Host in the preface you write america was born a rebellion, and its Popular Culture has embraced rebelliousness ever since. Guest yeah. And i think thats true. And thats why many cultural elitists dont like Popular Culture. They find it unruly and rebellious, and one of my themes is that Popular Culture is itself an expression of american freedom. And, sure, a lot of its garbage and often that freedom gets misused, but i love american Popular Culture because i think it is very great art, and it reflects this wonderful spirit of independence that america was founded on. Host paul cantor, whats a television show, a Popular Culture show today that youre watching regularly . Guest the walking dead. Host why . Guest im now into zombies. For years i resisted zombies, but people kept saying youve got to watch this show, and many of my analyses are of shows that present disasters. The government falls apart, Society Falls apart. And i suddenly realized these zombie matters are like that. And once again they split along these lines. This movie, world war sister, that world war z they have to resort to, in this case, the u. N. And to scientists and military special forces and brad pitt, all these elitist things. Yet the walking dead is just the opposite. It shows a world in which people when they fall back on their own resources do very well. Its a horrifying situation, but they grow, they find they rise to the challenge. I really like that spirit of the show. Its also just very well written and very well cast. Host were you able to talk to hollywood directors, hollywood writers about their work . Guest you know, its very hard to reach these people. I did Vince Gilligan who does breaking bad, he came to charlottesville for the film festival, and the directer of the festival arranged a kind of private meeting, and it was wonderful. I have to tell you, hes a real artist. All these things that happen are planned out. He was able to tell us what color scheme he planned for the whole season. These people dont like to say theyre artists, they dont like to have to be responsible to a critical public in that, but most of them are really very, very talented and as talented as the great novelists or playwrights we looked to in the past. Host the effect of 9 11 on Popular Culture. Guest well, thats a big question that i deal with in the last section of this book. On one level very interesting to see that all the predictions about 9 11 and its effect on culture proved to be untrue. People at the time said were going back to world war ii movies, were going to have patriotism, were going to have the old style american hero. There was a little bit of that, but, in fact and in particular people said we wont have shows that are skeptical about the government anymore. Now, were talking fall of 2001. People particularly said the xfiles was finished, and indeed, it went off in the spring of 2002. But i defend the xfiles as a show that in its last episode it really took a critical stance with regard to the war on terror. It really raised, i think, very important issues about how the erosion of civil liberties. And also in its spinoff, the lone gunman, it had actually predicted nerve, the most uncanny thing, i think, in the history of television. In march 2001, the debut of the show the lone gunman, it was about terrorists running a boeing plane into the world trade center. I mean, the fbi and cia were interviewing these guys a couple of months later. It was just a coincidence, but i felt it showed how much that the xfiles and the spinoffs had anticipated the problems of conspiracy theories. And in general, very quickly shows went back to i think in a hell hawaii way raise questions healthy way raise questions about the militarization of the police in the united states. Fringe is a great show about that. I think that was a fascinating reaction to 9 11. In fact, it imagines that a parallel universe, it imagines a parallel universe in which 9 11 did not happen and the u. S. Turns out to be more militarized in that universe, if you can believe it. Host could you write an entire book about the harry potter or series based on your themes . Guest i suppose i could, but im going to have to confess that i dont know the harry potter books or the movies. I have a certain confidence in myself that i could work up something on it, but [laughter] you know, i have to explain to people you cant do everything. I havent read every book, i havent seen every movie or television show. But from the little ive heard a friend of mine that did a wonderful essay on toll tolkien and the fascination with wizards, i think i could come up with something. Host and finally, professor cantor, if you could describe the cover of your book. Guest well, the cover was an attempt to show the continuity between american patriotism and spirit of independence and Popular Culture today. So we have a famous, iconic image, the spirit of 1776, and then we have john wayne and William Shatner and then someone who is not eric, bears a slight resemibalance to him but is not for legal reasons. [laughter] but we thought that captured the spirit of the book, showing that american Popular Culture has its roots in 1776. Host and paul cantor is the author of this book, the invisible hand in Popular Culture liberty v. Authority in american film and tv. Thank you for joining us. Guest well, thank you for having me here. It was a great pleasure. Visit booktv. Org to watch any of the programs you see here online. Type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. You can also share anything you see on booktv. Org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. Booktvea