Dear Charles,
You are interested in a wide variety of topics as am I. This discussion has
touched on politics, religion, forms
of ecclestiastical hierarchy, sociology, economics, history, Chinese
philosophy, and many other subjects. What
ever other topics interest you would probably interest me. You seemed to
want to drop the conversation on henotheism. Why?
>On democracy again Ghandi; "Oh yes, that would be a very good idea."
I did want to comment on that one before, but missed the opportunity. The
actual quote attributed to Gandhi, as I recall it, was something like this:
----------
Reporter: Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion of Western civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a very good idea.
------------
The implications of such a statement are quite different. Gandhi may be the
greatest political figure, activist, philosopher, and sage of the twentieth
century. Pound's only reference to Gandhi in the Cantos appears at 38/188:
And Mr. Gandhi thought:
If we don't buy any cotton
And at the same time don't buy any guns .......
Sounds a bit like an endorsement. Doesn't it? He doesn't mind Gandhi
boycotting British textiles. (Fine by me). He doesn't think the rebels
against British rule should buy guns because (as Terrell says) the money is
better spent on peace and on food. However, might we not doubt that Pound
cares about peace by this point? Terrell gets it wrong this time, I
believe. For on the very next page of this canto we find:
And Schossman
suggested that I stay there in Vienna
As stool pidgeon against the Anschluss . . .
Pound supported the Anschluss, and after the annexation of Austria, the
annexation and conquest of the whole of Western Europe. Pound did not seem
to think that Hitler (or Mussolini) should follow Gandhi's example: spend
less money on guns and more on peace. How are we to reconcile these
supposedly conflicting attitudes?
>I wonder when you will come around to your ultimate question: "Are you now
>or have you ever been an admirer of Ezra Pound?"
It is difficult for me to "admire" an unrepentant fascist. I am simply
being honest. There may be a great deal to admire in the Drafts and
Fragments, viewed a certain way. Pound total ouvre is obviously
interesting, and worthy of study in the sense in which Carroll Cox
explained.
>I invite you or any other member of this list to answer this question under
>oath to tell the truth so help your democracy.
I would not mind taking an oath, except that I am rather sympathetic to the
Quaker view that oaths are not
necessary if one is willing to tell the truth. Taking an oath implies that
when one is not under oath, one is not
telling the truth.
>And let's not take the "moc" out of democracy and above all not the humor.
Fair enough. As long as we don't take the "dic" out of "dictatorship"
(something which Pound wants to do,
which is surprising in light of his "phallocentrism")
>Todays quote is from Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn".
>"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big
>enough majority in any town?"
That's a nice quote, especially if we read it in light of some of Twain's
other comments on Western "Christendom". These remarks are from:
"A Salutation Speech from the Nineteenth Century to the
Twentieth taken down in shorthand by Mark Twain
I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning
bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored
from pirate raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa and the
Philippines, with her soul full of
meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious
hypocrisies. Give her soap and a
towel, but hide the looking-glass."
Mark Twain
New York, Dec. 31, 1900.
-------
We get a more serious view of Twain's opinions on US imperialism, national
sovereignty, of the subjected nations, and the importance of LIBERTY, in the
following quote.
-------
Doubt -- doubt that we did right by the Filipinos -- is rising
steadily higher and higher in the nation's
breast; conviction will follow doubt. The nation will speak; its will
is law; there is no other sovereign on
this soil; and in that day we shall right such unfairnesses as we
have done. We shall let go our
obsequious hold on the rear-skirts of the sceptred land-thieves of
Europe, and be what we were
before, a real World Power, and the chiefest of them all, by right of
the only clean hands in
Christendom, the only hands guiltless of the sordid plunder of any
helpless people's stolen liberties,
--------
Look at the larger picture, which we can piece together by examining these
three quotes, and what do we get? In Twain I see a man extremely aware of
the shortcomings of American democracy, and of the evils of imperialism, who
is also committed to such concepts as the general will and human liberty
(positive concepts of which Pound appears to have little or no conception,
committed as he is to the will of the dictator, and the extension of
empire).
What are we to believe in?
This is the only question I am posing. Some people want to talk about where
the comma is in some obscure passage. Or ask whether such and such a
reference refers to a certain obscure historical event. Such questions are
not without interest, but if they are divorced completely from questions of
value, of truth, of ethical or political committment, then what use are
they?
I get the sense that some people are simply afraid of facing the deeper
social and moral issues; that some are upset simply because they dislike the
implications of certain questions. Perhaps I am wrong. I do not claim that
my answers are correct. But at least they are attempts at answers. If some
people want to bury their heads in the sand, and just accept the superficial
and entertaining aspects of literary study, then again I ask, what is the
point?
The point of any study of literature and philosophy must, in my view, be the
aquisition of knowledge and wisdom regarding the eternal virtues: justice,
ethical action, committment to egalitarian values, a love of truth, and the
pursuit of God, however one attempts to comprehend that absolute first
source of value.
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