The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Since this book continues the project I began in Gilligan Unbound, I refer my readers to its acknowledgments for a fuller record of my debts to all the people who have, over the years, encouraged and supported my work on popular culture. I want to thank James Pontuso, William Irwin, and Michael Valdez Moses for reading versions of this book in its entirety and making very useful suggestions for improving it. At the University Press of Kentucky, Stephen Wrinn and Anne Dean Watkins heartened me from the beginning with their enthusiasm for this project and have helped me at every stage of my progress. I also thank Allison Webster and Donna Bouvier for their assistance in getting this book into its final shape. I am deeply grateful to all the editors listed below, who aided in the earlier publication of many of the chapters of this book. Stephen Cox, of Liberty magazine, made a special effort to republish my essay on South Park. Over the past decade, I have had the valuable opportunity to present the substance of these chapters as papers at conferences and as lectures at colleges and universities all over the United States. It would take too long to list the many people who sponsored and facilitated these appearances, but I thank them all for the chance to develop my ideas in public and to benefit from lively exchanges with a wide variety of audiences. I should single out the Politics, Literature, and Film section of the American Political Science Association and the Ludwig von Mises Institute for hosting me on numerous occasions. A special word of gratitude goes to Peter Hufnagel and Andrea Dvorak, who have in recent years joined the small circle of friends who put up with my sometimes impossibly weird taste in pop culture. Being much younger than I am, they have listened wide-eyed to my improbable tales of the ancient days when there were but three networks on television and programming ceased at 1:00 a.m. Being able to draw upon their fresh perspectives has helped me keep in touch with the latest developments in pop culture. I think they were trying to tell me something when they gave me a Blu-ray player 349 350 Acknowledgments for Christmas. Having said a sad farewell to my VCR in the dedication of Gilligan Unbound and replaced it with a DVD player for this book, I am prepared to take the next step and follow my young friends’ lead bravely into the new world of twenty-first-century entertainment technology. The introduction was published in an earlier version under the same title in Philosophy and the Interpretation of Pop Culture, ed. William Irwin and Jorge J. E. Gracia (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 161–186. Chapter 1 was published in an earlier version under the same title in Print the Legend: Politics, Culture, and Civic Virtue in the Films of John Ford, ed. Sidney A Pearson Jr. (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2009), 101–131. Chapter 3 was published in two earlier (and different) versions: one under the same title in The Philosophy of the Western, ed. Jennifer L. McMahon and B. Steve Csaki (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 113–147; the other under the title “The Deadwood Dilemma: Freedom versus Law,” in Damned If You Do: Dilemmas of Action in Literature and Popular Culture, ed. Margaret S. Hrezo and John M. Parrish (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2010), 21–39. Chapter 5 was published in an earlier version under the title “Flying Solo: The Aviator and Libertarian Philosophy,” in The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese, ed. Mark T. Conard (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 165–187. Chapter 6 was published in two earlier (and different) versions: one under the title “The Invisible Gnomes and the Invisible Hand: South Park and Libertarian Philosophy,” in South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today, ed. Robert Arp (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007), 97–111; the other under the title “Cartman Shrugged: South Park and Libertarianism ,” Liberty 21, no. 9 (2007): 23–30. Chapter 7 was published in an earlier version under the same title in The Philosophy of Horror, ed. Thomas Fahy (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 137–160. Chapter 8 was published in an earlier version under the title “Film Noir and the Frankfurt School: America as Wasteland in Edgar Ulmer’s Detour,” in The Philosophy of Film Noir, ed. Mark T. Conard (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), 139–161. Chapter 9...