Charles,

Two points.

Tone is hard to assess in this medium. That said, I do not find Wei's tone
to be that of someone who is "infuriated" though I could be wrong about his
state of mind.

As for "suburban prejudice."   I doubt that Pound ever characterized his
attitude towards Jewish financiers, and to Jews generally, in such
misleading terms. It is reported that he made such a statement.  But the
attitude towards Jews one finds in Pound's works was hardly "suburban".  How
can these ideas aptly be called "suburban" when figures such as Ezzelino are
exemplars for them? How "suburban", when racial-homogeneity, racial
solidarity, race-will, nationhood and empire are involved? There is much
more to Pound's attitude towards Jewish banking families and Jews generally
than can be summed up in the term "suburban".  This is much more than a
middle-class or upper-middle-class phenomenon. More than Groucho Marx not
wanting to belong to any country club that would have the questionable taste
to accept him.

Tim Romano

P.S. Grouch Marx's letters to T.S. Eliot are recommended reading.


----- Original Message -----
From: "charles moyer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 12:26 PM
Subject: Wei's Tarantella


> Wei,
>     I know in the East a favorite saying is "The nail which stands up gets
> driven down." And for the running of a smooth society it probably has its
> usefulness. But, frankly, I don't like it. And would say that those nails
> which stand up may have a far-sighted vision which is incapable of those
> level ones around them. Afterall, "the artists are the antenae of the
race."
> If we Pound them all down we do ourselves a great disservice.
>     That Monty Python "stick" is an old chestnut. The way I heard it many
> years ago before Monty goes something like this;
>     "The socialist is haranguing the crowd. He bellows, "After the
> revolution we'll all eat steak and mushrooms".
>     A fellow in the back of the crowd meekly speaks up, "But I don't like
> mushrooms."
>     The Socialist now worked up to a fever pitch answers, "After the
> revolution we'll all eat steak and mushrooms, and we'll like steak and
> mushrooms."
>     I am trying to get to a workable definition of anti-semitism because I
> also see something "squishy" about the term. There is a difference between
> Pound's assessment of Jews and an unquestionable anti-semitic racist
theory
> like Rosenberg's. But the question of usury is always lurking about. And
> this is the reason I included his statement in my posting. Rosenberg would
> have been entirely  incapable of writing the Pound letter which represents
> more than talk but definite action and sympathy in favor of a Jew. You
want
> to erase these examples so your preconceived thesis will not be
questioned,
> and in this sense you also miss Nietzche's point. In the name of
"equality"
> you want to be more than equal; you wish your thoughts to reign supreme, a
> mushroom lover. i am sure others could see this in the Nietzche selection,
> but you can not because you are so throughly one of the tarantulas he
> describes.
>     It infuriates you that I and others will not pass the same judgment on
> Pound that you do. You sound at times like a raving fanatic who wants to
> lead a lynch-mob in the name of some righteous cause. Perhaps this is why
> you are angered by those whose vision reaches beyond your own and the
> "collective"  for which you think you qualify as spokesman. Do you go to
bed
> with Doob under your pillow as Alexander did with his copy of the "Illiad"
> so upon rising first thing in the morning you can look up another
> anti-semitic quote from Saint Ezra to get you through the day?
>     But in answer to your impertinent question, En Lin Wei, yes I have
read
> enough of the Radio Broadcasts to know what they say, but I also am aware
> that Pound admitted that he had succumbed to the  "suburban prejudice of
> anti-semitism". Does that count as anything to you? Or are you dragging
your
> own red herring through these discourses?
>
> CDM
>
> p.s. History proves that "individual talents" as you concede there are,
> flourish in all sorts of environments and conditions sometimes even best
in
> the worst precisely because they are "free" from dogma and have COURAGE.
The
> Muse certainly of all spirits does not abandon her own under adverse
> cicumstances. Look at the great poetry Ezra Pound wrote in a monkey cage.
>
>