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?
If you listened to the ep the you'd understand that the CIA didn't "mold" anyone. They found existing writers that they liked and helped then found major writing workshops and review papers and promoted them. You can either say anyone who went to the Iowa school or was inspired by it or followed its trends or no one.
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I mean, fair enough. But certain people were funded and given important positions, and they influenced generations of students with the institutional power they had.
Like, I wonder if the Field of Dreams guy, Kinsella, would have taken off if there wasn't a push for that sorta cheesy white writing. Ya, the CIA didn't tell people what to write. But it has a definite cultural effect.
My point is who the CIA promoted are clearly known and there's no need to speculate. The question frames the topic in a conspiratorial manner, to say "oh artist X is a CIA plant".
In regards to the CCF and the Iowa Writers Workshop, the CIA didn't support individuals but rather certain styles.
Anyhow, this post isn't meant to be educational, but rather an entertaining gripe at awful writers that were poured down our throats as children.
I think it's interesting they chose Stegner. While his collected short stories focus on small scale evocative experiences, The Big Rock Candy Mountain is a scathing critique of America and the frontier mentality. Whether Stegner meant it to be a critique, however, is another story.