In the book, the Berlin Wall is more than a marker of the Cold War divide: its fall becomes a point of reversal in an argument about American popular culture, capitalism, and conservative morality. A conference anecdote links the desire to enjoy that culture with the political forces that brought down the wall, turning a conservative complaint into evidence against the position from which it was made.

The Wall in a Political Argument

The Berlin Wall enters a discussion of the overthrow of Eastern European Communist regimes. The forces credited with that change include youth culture, intellectuals of the 1960s generation, and laboring classes that continued to favor Solidarity over individualism. The Wall’s fall thus sits within a broader political realignment, not simply a contest between Communist rule and its opponents.

Popular Culture and the Wall’s Fall

The anecdote begins with Robert Bork’s disapproval of Michael Jackson’s crotch-clutching performance at the Super Bowl. Another panelist replied that the desire to enjoy such manifestations of American culture had helped bring down the Berlin Wall. The pointed connection makes popular pleasure part of the political story: the culture Bork regarded as a symptom of moral decline was also invoked as an attraction strong enough to contribute to the collapse of Communist regimes.

The Irony of the Reversal

Bork recognized the irony enough to suggest that the argument supported putting the wall back up, but, as the book observes, he missed its deeper implication. The critique is that moral conservatives condemn permissive consumer culture while passionately supporting an unbridled capitalist economy whose expanding reproduction creates new demands. The Wall’s fall returns this contradiction in political form: the culture opposed by conservatives is not merely an external enemy, but an outcome of the economic order they defend.