It’s been a lot of years since I read Vonnegut and it’s the imagery that sticks with me more than anything else. I did not remember that specific quote but it’s pretty cringe. For whatever can be said about the moral weight of the bombing of Dresden it was definitely not the biggest massacre in European history. I’ll always say I like Vonnegut and definitely important part of my pipeline but he’s got Iowa writers workshop brain worms like many of his contemporaries.
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
It’s been a lot of years since I read Vonnegut and it’s the imagery that sticks with me more than anything else. I did not remember that specific quote but it’s pretty cringe. For whatever can be said about the moral weight of the bombing of Dresden it was definitely not the biggest massacre in European history. I’ll always say I like Vonnegut and definitely important part of my pipeline but he’s got Iowa writers workshop brain worms like many of his contemporaries.
Could you explain the reference? I don’t know what Iowa writers’ workshop is referring to or what its brainworms are.
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