UC Riverside

This dissertation traces the cultural trajectory of an ideological shift from New Deal liberalism and the postwar liberal consensus to a new neoliberal politics and value system between World War II and the rise of the Reagan Revolution. This essay argues that the shift, observed by economist Milton Friedman and political/social theorist Steven Lukes, transcended the left-right binary of American politics and was animated by a libertarian turn toward radical individualism. That turn was informed and shaped by discourses on the fate of the free individual in a modern world engulfed in mass culture and mired in a Cold War that encouraged America’s authoritarian tendencies -- and framed the pushback against them. It also argues that what resulted was an individualism that was ideologically masculinist, defining the free individual as a heteronormative ideal man and liberty as a masculine right, thus limiting the liberty and equality of those defined as “other.” The shift produced economic, social, and political beliefs, priorities, and values that limited discussions on policy and encouraged business behaviors that contributed to a series of crises, exacerbated inequality, and constricted Americans’ ability to solve the nation’s problems at a time when it could have just as easily extended individual freedom to all Americans unconditionally. In tracing this trajectory, the essay examines intellectual trends and their intersection with a popular culture that was of particular significance to modern American libertarian and individualist thought, as well as masculine identity construction. The essay explains that the shift wouldn’t have occurred in the way that it did (and may not have happened at all) without the influence of novels, movies, magazines, and other elements of a mass media culture with the power to shape public sentiment. Individual chapters are devoted to the influence of Ayn Rand, Norman Mailer, Hugh Hefner and Playboy, and the Hollywood western, particularly its changing iconography of the cowboy and the Native American warrior. The study employs a loosely Foucauldian method and utilizes a wide variety of sources, including primary and secondary print literature, film and television productions, and archival collections.