[Posts were sent in the wrong order.  The correct reading order is:

Pound and Frobenius (First Part-A)

Pound and Frobenius (First Part-B)

Pound and Frobenius  (Second Part) -- which was accidentally posted first


B.H. wrote in his recent four part post on Pound, the New Masses, and
Racism, the following statements.

1.  "Frobenius was decidedly not an advocate of white supremacy."

2.  "He argued for the historical purity of Africa over Europe, and the
influence of African culture on Europe"

I would respectfully suggest that these statements need revision.  Frobenius
DID on several occasions advocate white supremacy.  He also argued that the
highest acheivements in African art were the product of a "non-Negroid"
race, probably of Greek origin.  He also said Africans were incapable of
ruling themselves and helped to devise some elaborate schemes to perpetuate
colonial rule in Africa, especially German colonial rule.  Some detailed
evidence is provided below.

This is not to say that Frobenius did not perform a great service for
African culture, or that his views toward Africa should be labeled as
exlusively racist.  His views were complex and contradictory.  I make this
point, in part, because it has serious implications for our understanding of
the way in which Pound viewed Frobenius and race relations.

I put the symbol *** near those passages below which show that Frobenius
was, in his own way, a strong racialist of sorts.  This is part of a longer
essay on the subject of Pound and Race.  B.H. has invited us to post essays
here, and since this has a direct bearing on his essay, I thought some
readers might find this useful.

POUND AND FROBENIUS

The last significant influence on Pound's thought during the 20's was
Frobenius. This German explorer, who conducted numerous anthropological and
archaeological expeditions in Africa, provided Pound with a theory of
"Kulturmorphologie" which served as the basis of his ideas on race and
cultural inheritance. A somewhat detailed presentation of Frobenius' thought
is relevant in this context, since Pound placed so much stock in the German
thinker's notion of Paideuma; and since many of Pound's views on race and
empire were reinforced by contact with (and misreadings of) Frobenius.

In April of 1929, Yeats reported to a friend, "Pound is sunk in Frobenius,
Spengler's German source, and finds him a most interesting person" (Stock,
287). Pound met Frobenius briefly in Frankfurt while attending the premiere
performance of Antheil's opera Transatlantic. Not long afterwards the poet
would observe, "One cannot fully understand modern thought without some
awareness of Frobenius's work" (Sel. Prose, 301). By the mid 30's he was
frequently referring to Frobenius in his published writings as if he were
"as well-known as Dante. . . " (Carpenter, 505).

Pound's most detailed explanations of Frobenius' significance are in the
Guide to Kulchur. There he praises the German anthropologist for his use of
the term "Paideuma." According to Pound, "Frobenius uses the term Paideuma
for the tangle or complex of the inrooted ideas of any period" (GK, 57).
Pound wished to distinguish the term from more abstract philosophical
notions.

The Paideuma is not the Zeitgeist though I
Have no doubt many people will try to sink it in the
latter romantic term. . .
When I said I wanted a new civilization, I think I
could have used Frobenius' term.
At any rate, for my own use and for the duration of
this treatise I shall use Paideuma for the grisly roots of
ideas that are in action.
I shall leave "Zeitgeist" as including also the
atmospheres, the tints of mental air and the idées
reçues, the notions that a great mass of people still hold
or half-hold from habit, from waning custom.
(GK, 58).

This seems to be an inversion of Frobenius' concept of Paideuma. Pound
desires to distinguish rarified atmospheric ideas and the notions of the
masses from the ideas of active genius which are rooted in a distinct racial
makeup and heritage. He expresses interest in Frobenius' "lists of the
characteristics of races. . . ," and observes "Whatever one thinks of his
lists of symptoms, Hammite, Shemite, etc. . . It is nonsense for the
anglo-saxon to revile the jew for beating him at this own game" (GK., 245).
Although Frobenius does engage in analysis of racial characteristics,
(comparing the Hammites to the French and the Ethiopians to the Germans, for
instance), he states,

It is not a question of whether human beings are
better in one continent than another: they are, in
fact the same throughout except for a few qualities
which they imbibe as part of their cultural inheritance
(Frobenius, 21).

One difference between Pound and Frobenius lies in the fact that the latter
placed a high value on the commonplace stories, the "idées reçues," the
fables and the folklore of the African people. Frobenius believed the
average African, uncorrupted by a mechanized view of life, was capable of
"daemonic moments," which could not be experienced by members of an
over-intellectualized Western civilization. In European society, only
children were capable of such experiences. "The importance of such daemonic
moments," Frobenius said, "is that they display a culture or paideuma in its
creative aspect, with an elemental force that no adult can equal, be he the
greatest artist or scholar in the world" (Frobenius, 45). Pound could not
accept this usage of the term. While both Pound and Frobenius relied on the
term Paideuma to destroy old associations, Frobenius used it more often as a
synonym for universal "culture" while Pound used it as a synonym for higher
"civilization." In other words, Frobenius wanted the word Paideuma to
designate forms of life, which were essential. As he put it, "Paideuma
signifies life and fulfillment and is the anti-thesis of knowledge" (F. 45).
Or, "I have found it necessary for certain purposes to replace the word
'culture' by the special term 'Paideuma.' " "Paideuma is," Frobenius said,
". . . the spiritual essence of culture in general." (Frobenius, 21). Pound,
on the other hand, connected "Frobenius' term" with the desire for a "new
civilization" (GK, 58). He made the difference between himself and Frobenius
clearest when he wrote, "I shd claim to get on from where Frobenius left
off, in that his Morphology was applied to savages and my interest is in
civilizations at their most." (Letters, 336). Pound's interest in
"civilizations at their most" led him to emphasize the racial morphological
aspects of Frobenius' teachings in a way which suited him. Clearly China and
ancient Italy were examples of "civilizations at their most," and Frobenius
provided part of the justification for the narration of Chinese Imperial
history in Cantos 52-61.

(continued in Pound and Frobenius (First Part-B)
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