Wei wrote:

'Incidentally, I would be interested to know what evidence exists to show
that IN HIS POLITICAL BELIEFS, in his poetry, in his written work, Pound
showed he was for a system which favored the "little folk."'

DP: There is no question in my mind that Pound was thoroughly elitist
and had no interest in the common folk.  His hatred of Usury focuses
on its effects on the arts, not on the little guy's lifestyle.
I am amused to recall an instance of his total insensitivity to the
workingman.  Sometime in the 20s he offered the suggestion that
music be piped in to the factory floor to enable the worker to be
more productive by reducing the monotony of his job.  (He was his
own sort of Taylorite!)

By the way, I do not denigrate Pound for being unconcerned with the
mass of humanity.  His stance is perhaps a needed corrective to
today's PC downgrade of all elites in favor of the always-oppressed
little guy of every stripe and color.  (But of course, today's humane
democratism is itself partly a reaction to Modernism's insensitivities.)
It is true that EP later became interested in certain minority cultures,
but only for their symbolically interesting rituals and myths.

==Dan P

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