I’m glad I came across this, though it is sad to read. I have a vague memory of reading something about this in the past, but couldn’t remember any of the details.

In particular, this part from the second article jars something for me:

“Good literature, students learned, contains ‘sensations, not doctrines; experiences, not dogmas; memories, not philosophies.’” These rules have become so embedded in the aesthetic canons that govern literary fiction that they almost go without question, even if we encounter thousands of examples in history that break them and still manage to meet the bar of “good literature.”

It reminds me of the pushing/proliferation of the “show, don’t tell” dogma, which is a thing people cling to today. You can easily draw a line of eerie similarity between these elements as existing on opposite poles, within the “show, don’t tell” framework. Sensations, experiences, and memories as showing. Doctrine, dogma, and philosophy as telling.

It makes so much more sense that the nonsensical dichotomy of showing and telling could have derived from CIA meddling, rather than from organic literary criticism. Because as serious literary analysis, it makes no fucking sense and people pretzel themselves trying to justify it. It’s maddening to think about because I can tell there’s something wrong with English literary conventions, have been able to for a while, but this gives a direct reason as to why. The CIA fucked up the tutelage of a whole medium for a little more propaganda. They basically nurtured a form of illiteracy of a medium. Taught people wrong. So they wouldn’t write the “wrong” stuff.