THE CIA READS FRENCH THEORY: ON THE INTELLECTUAL LABOR OF DISMANTLING THE CULTURAL LEFT

Our political theoreticians do more than just write theory by which we all try to live by and work by. For example, John Paul Sartre wrote a lot on Marxism, but he also wrote plays, such as "No Exit" and "The Flies." Mao Zedong (毛泽东) wrote poems such as "Changsha" and "Yellow Crain Tower." Then in the 1950s there were attacks on such films as "Salt of the Earth," (1954) which was attacked by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The film was written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico, all of who became attached under the HCUAA committee. The list of Marxist crossing over to culture goes on and on. But as we all know, the US and it's secret police want to silence all leftist ideas, be them political or cultural. Much of what we produce may seen harmless, but out government takes no chances.

So we need to defend and uphold our cultural heroes and fight against such attacks. Here is a good article about such attacks.

-សតិវ​អតុ

From The Philosophical Salon:

It is often presumed that intellectuals have little or no political power. Perched in a privileged ivory tower, disconnected from the real world, embroiled in meaningless academic debates over specialized minutia, or floating in the abstruse clouds of high-minded theory, intellectuals are frequently portrayed as not only cut off from political reality but as incapable of having any meaningful impact on it. The Central Intelligence Agency thinks otherwise.

As a matter of fact, the agency responsible for coups d’état, targeted assassinations and the clandestine manipulation of foreign governments not only believes in the power of theory, but it dedicated significant resources to having a group of secret agents pore over what some consider to be the most recondite and intricate theory ever produced. For in an intriguing research paper written in 1985, and recently released with minor redactions through the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA reveals that its operatives have been studying the complex, international trend-setting French theory affiliated with the names of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan and Roland Barthes.

The image of American spies gathering in Parisian cafés to assiduously study and compare notes on the high priests of the French intelligentsia might shock those who presume this group of intellectuals to be luminaries whose otherworldly sophistication could never be caught in such a vulgar dragnet, or who assume them to be, on the contrary, charlatan peddlers of incomprehensible rhetoric with little or no impact on the real world. However, it should come as no surprise to those familiar with the CIA’s longstanding and ongoing investment in a global cultural war, including support for its most avant-garde forms, which has been well documented by researchers like Frances Stonor Saunders, Giles Scott-Smith, Hugh Wilford (and I have made my own contribution in Radical History & the Politics of Art).

Thomas W. Braden, the former supervisor of cultural activities at the CIA, explained the power of the Agency’s cultural assault in a frank insider’s account published in 1967: “I remember the enormous joy I got when the Boston Symphony Orchestra [which was supported by the CIA] won more acclaim for the U.S. in Paris than John Foster Dulles or Dwight D. Eisenhower could have bought with a hundred speeches.” This was by no means a small or liminal operation. In fact, as Wilford has aptly argued, the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), which was headquartered in Paris and later discovered to be a CIA front organization during the cultural Cold War, was among the most important patrons in world history, supporting an incredible range of artistic and intellectual activities. It had offices in 35 countries, published dozens of prestige magazines, was involved in the book industry, organized high-profile international conferences and art exhibits, coordinated performances and concerts, and contributed ample funding to various cultural awards and fellowships, as well as to front organizations like the Farfield Foundation.

For the rest click here.