I would argue rather, that its survival was not based on merit so much as the cultural significance that was deliberately assigned to it and deliberately amplified by CIA promotion. This is still going on today. Like Pollack, the ascendancy of so much in our culture does not happen organically. This is particularly true with respect to specific areas of scientific research that come to enjoy generous funding. What Stoner Saunders has discovered provides the layman a powerful template for so understanding the way the world works. It is for this reason that her intensive research is so incredibly powerful. The kicker? Pollock had no idea he was being deliberately sponsored and promoted this way.

This was part of a larger project by the CIA to create a synthetic left politic after the exodus of socialist and communist scholars and organizers during the red scare. Cultural movements like New Ageism, Abstract Expressionism were funded and promoted in the shadows by the CIA, not because they thought they had any merit, but to block out any organic left traditionally organized around working class economic rights from filling the power vacuum left by McCarthyism.