Matt Kielty

For me, the economy actually plays a big part in all this.

Will says that in the 80s, across the West, you see anti-union politics, increasing privatization, the end of social safety nets, and like calls for personal responsibility.

And that had a sort of a huge impact on who we were and how we understood the world as a people.

I mean, the best way to sum it up is if you think about who we were in 1965 versus 1985, we went from...

hippies, collectivists, sort of screw the man, anti-materialistic people to Greed is Good and Material Girl and Whitney Houston singing The Greatest Love of All is Yourself.

And also, right around the same time, you have the self-help movement.

See you at the top is the program that gives a checkup from the neck up.

This huge industry.

Better relationships, financial independence.

So these ideas were already kind of out there in the culture.

And I think if you'd have tried to launch the self-esteem movement in 1975, it wouldn't have got anywhere.

But by the mid-80s...

This idea of, I'm amazing, is the answer to all my problems.

I just feel like the culture was ready for it.

And also, I think it's worth realizing... How many of us have been in counseling and therapy?

That therapy was also becoming this huge thing.

And there's this book from the 80s that basically says that now the modern equivalent to salvation, to heaven, was mental health.

It's like all of these things came together in this exact right moment for John to step onto the scene and just be like, hey, I have something powerful, this social vaccine, self-esteem, that could help all of us.

The challenge that you truly carry yourselves back into your schools.

This week marks four years since the start of the war in Ukraine.