If you listened to the last episode of Citations Needed, you heard that the CIA funneled money into into cultural institutions like the Iowa Writers Workshop and the Paris Review to win the cultural war against communism. Much of this led to the emphasis on first-person writing and a focus on individual experience.

I don't know about you comrades, but I got Ds throughout secondary (high school) in English. I fucking hated 20th century lit. Are there any pretentious and overly individualistic writers that you blame on the CIA?

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I had to read The Pearl and Grapes of Wrath in elementary school and even then I remember thinking the stories seemed out of place. Most of the time in school we were learning about what rich or powerful people were up to, now here are suddenly these stories about the crushing weight of poverty. Felt weird.