My laymen’s understanding of the subject is that basically the CIA needed a culture counterpoint to the artistic output of the Soviet Union and this was a part of that. They deliberately cultivated a mileu of “I’m a socialist but Stalin was a fascist” because it allowed them to highlight the progressive values and free speech of the U.S. while painting the Soviets as an authoritarian police state. It’s not as simple as “The CIA invented post-modernism” but they certainly helped
Just from cursory googling
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2019/05/07/how-the-iowa-writers-workshop-saved-kurt-vonneguts-fledgling-career/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-american-literature-into-a-content-farm
My laymen’s understanding of the subject is that basically the CIA needed a culture counterpoint to the artistic output of the Soviet Union and this was a part of that. They deliberately cultivated a mileu of “I’m a socialist but Stalin was a fascist” because it allowed them to highlight the progressive values and free speech of the U.S. while painting the Soviets as an authoritarian police state. It’s not as simple as “The CIA invented post-modernism” but they certainly helped