Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything

Not All Propaganda is Art 2: Outsider Influence

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Jan 30, 2024
New Yorker writer Dwight Macdonald investigated covert propaganda while joining Encounter magazine in 1956. Colin Wilson, an Existentialist, became England's answer to Jean-Paul Sartre. Discover the covert propaganda behind Operation Free Youth Action and Operation Anti-Sartre, as well as its influence on Macdonald's critique of Mass and Middlebrow Culture.
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ANECDOTE

Overnight Fame

  • Colin Wilson, a young café habitué, became famous overnight after rave reviews of his book, The Outsider.
  • Carol Ann Gill, a coffee girl, typed some of the manuscript after it was damaged in a bus accident.
INSIGHT

Outsider Figures

  • Colin Wilson's The Outsider explores the struggles of individuals who feel alienated from society.
  • The book examines outsider figures like Dostoevsky, Kafka, Van Gogh, Blake, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.
INSIGHT

Right Place, Right Time

  • Gary Lachman believes Colin Wilson's success was due to being the right age at the right time.
  • Wilson's youth and outsider status resonated with the cultural zeitgeist of 1956.
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