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As a creative person, finding out how much of that whole era was an operation is demoralizing. In culture it was a time when there was a there there. Young men
by motohagiography 2y ago
As a creative person, finding out how much of that whole era was an operation is demoralizing. In culture it was a time when there was a there there. Young men could reasonably aspire to growing up to become artists and writers, in a society where ideas and discourse had coherent meaning and the politics of the nation had at least some accountability to reason. Reading that it was just another spy hustle makes me want to stop writing.
However, these stories also fit into the narrative that we have no culture, it was all fake, and therefore there is nothing worth preserving or protecting, only dismantling and dissolving. It's hackneyed. Another demoralizing narrative churned out by a partisan brunch chatter factory shouldn't bring us down.
Really, the CIA and the western intelligence community had one job. I like how the west thinks it won the cold war when all of its institutions are openly occupied by the very ideologues they were formed against. Sure, CIA backed culture industries, and Hollywood is an organ of the State Department, but in spite of these stories, the sort of people our society pays to do dirty jobs are not our protagonists, and they are not the story imo.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- stareatgoats 2y ago> all of its institutions are openly occupied by the very ideologues they were formed against. Examples?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- motohagiography 2y agoanywhere there is a rainbow flag really, I don't know that anyone could argue against intersectionality and post-colonialism as being examples of the marxist movements that the CIA fought the cold war against. it's not even critical to say it's all very explicitly marxist, right down to "white," being defined negatively as whatever is not "red," and revolutionary, or "of-color" today. it's maoism with american characteristics. what appears to have changed judging by the number of officials mugging for cable news shows is the intelligence community apparently sees itself as the elite in a post-national technocracy, and they are happily dismantling the confining limits of their host nations. the words for most of these sentiments are officially suppressed, but everybody knows. it's why they're afraid of memes. knowing what great artists, comedians, and writers are capable of, I'm optimistic and not entirely demoralized to read that some pseudo-intellectual sellouts sold out to some sellouts and are only remembered in the new yorker for that.
- cempaka 2y ago> anywhere there is a rainbow flag really, I don't know that anyone could argue against intersectionality and post-colonialism as being examples of the marxist movements that the CIA fought the cold war against Yes, when Raytheon or some BigTech front for mass surveillance splashes the rainbow colors across their logo, that's 'Marxism' at work! Plenty of Marxists are actually quite skeptical of intersectionality. There's vigorous debate on the left as to whether its ultimate role (if not to say its intended purpose) is to undermine class analysis and solidarity with an endless kaleidoscope of trumped-up divisions. The idea that Marxism has captured Hollywood is likewise bollocks. The films it churns out relentlessly champion narcissism, power fantasies, fast cars, and the MIC.