This sounds like a hyperbolic joke but it’s actually true, for anyone who’s unaware of the history there. US intelligence funded “education” for writers that held that points and meanings must be shown rather than told, misrepresenting Chekov’s old advice for playwrights that background details should be shown through set dressing and practical effects instead of worked into spoken dialogue. This formed the idea that authors must hide their meaning behind symbolism and allegory as a clever treat for smart lads who figure it out, instead of directly arguing any point through the text. They also funded the vapid post-modern art scene that effectively held the same stance for artists, with this idea that the meaning of art should be a secret puzzle of symbols and reasoning that leaves the viewer to decide the truth of the piece for themselves.
This combined to cultivate this status quo of media that just kind of does stuff and has vibes and any intent and messages are hidden away in secret extra layers, only to be experienced through wild speculation where anyone can simply decide on an interpretation and justify it, which defangs art as a medium for propaganda and trains audiences to just happily chow down on the surface aesthetics.
Symbolism and allegory should be tools for emphasis or foreshadowing, being tasty little mind treats for clever or educated consumers, but they should never be the primary carrier of meaning in a work. If you have a point to make, beat the audience over and about the head with it, tell it to them outright, and then repeat this at least one or two more times, and you’ll maybe get through to a fraction of them.
Incredible follow up comment. It’s been too long since I’ve listened to and this episode sounds interesting af. And hilarious. And infuriating. Classic
This sounds like a hyperbolic joke but it’s actually true, for anyone who’s unaware of the history there. US intelligence funded “education” for writers that held that points and meanings must be shown rather than told, misrepresenting Chekov’s old advice for playwrights that background details should be shown through set dressing and practical effects instead of worked into spoken dialogue. This formed the idea that authors must hide their meaning behind symbolism and allegory as a clever treat for smart lads who figure it out, instead of directly arguing any point through the text. They also funded the vapid post-modern art scene that effectively held the same stance for artists, with this idea that the meaning of art should be a secret puzzle of symbols and reasoning that leaves the viewer to decide the truth of the piece for themselves.
This combined to cultivate this status quo of media that just kind of does stuff and has vibes and any intent and messages are hidden away in secret extra layers, only to be experienced through wild speculation where anyone can simply decide on an interpretation and justify it, which defangs art as a medium for propaganda and trains audiences to just happily chow down on the surface aesthetics.
Symbolism and allegory should be tools for emphasis or foreshadowing, being tasty little mind treats for clever or educated consumers, but they should never be the primary carrier of meaning in a work. If you have a point to make, beat the audience over and about the head with it, tell it to them outright, and then repeat this at least one or two more times, and you’ll maybe get through to a fraction of them.
Edit: I went and found the link to the history of the CIA funding this sort of shit https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-144-how-the-cold-war-shaped-first-person-journalism-and-literary-conventionss-42bf68ccaef
The Iowa Writers’ Workshop was such a deep psyop, and it’s effects are still reverberating in contemporary
Incredible follow up comment. It’s been too long since I’ve listened to
and this episode sounds interesting af. And hilarious. And infuriating. Classic 
I like art to be a puzzle box of meaning sometimes!
And the CIA writing program; have you tried it? It really is quite good. Those fuckers know how to make shit up based on literally nothing!
The problem is when there’s nothing else, and its incomprehensible puzzles getting off on how hard they are or pointless llm slop.