Richard Edwards wrote:

<<Subject: Re: The Worker under Confucio-Mencian Feudalism and under Italian
Fascism

Speaking of the following quotation, usefully supplied by Tim Romano:

>>
>>     "If you don't believe that Mussolini is driven by
>>a vast and deep "concern" or will for the welfare
>>of Italy, not Italy as a bureaucracy, or Italy as a
>>state machinery stuck up on top of the people, but
>>for Italy organic, composed of the last ploughman
>>and the last girl in the olive-yards, then you will
>>have a great deal of trouble about he un-Jeffersonian
>>details of his surfaces."
>>      JEFF and/ or MUSS, Ch. 6, "Intelligentsias" (publ. 1935)
>

Wei wrote:

>Mussolini, Pound, and the supporters of fascism really cared not at all for
>the worker. Seldes quotes a number of observers who share a >belief in the
>equation "fascism equals feudalism." ...
>Given the REALTITES of Confucio-Mencian feudalism, and of Italian fascism,
>how can it be seriously argued that Pound cared at all for a social system
>which would benefit the "little guy"?
>
>----Wei    >>

RICHARD EDWARDS ASKS,

<<Assuming it is agreed that in Tim Romano's quotation Pound is at least
purporting to show concern for the worker, was he (a) lying, (b) joking, (c)
deceiving himself, (d) showing off, (e) writing without thinking or (f) some
combination of all or some of these?>>

This is an excellent question, well phrased, offering us many possibilities,
and extremely difficult to answer.  The question requires us to look at
Pound's statements regarding Mussolini, and discern a single underlying
motive, or some mode of thinking, which by its very nature is hidden or
unspoken.

Pound would never have been likely to admit either publicly, or even
privately, that he was  lying, self-deceived, showing off, or writing
without thinking.  As to the possibility that he was "joking" when he said
Mussolini was for the worker, I think we can discard that possibility.
Pound was very serious about Mussolini, and about fascism.

The notion that Pound was lying or deceiving himself might be worth
considering.  The borderline between lying and self-deception is very thin,
especially in the matter of political opinion.  We could argue that Pound
really knew that Mussolini did not give a fig about the workers, but that he
chose to ignore the facts.  It is possible that Pound managed to orient his
manner of thinking such that any evidence suggesting Mussolini was
anti-worker was simply filtered out.   Once Pound accepted as an axiom the
notion that Mussolini could do no wrong, the evidence did not matter.  So
was Pound "lying"?  Perhaps not, in the sense that Pound, or a part of
Pound, genuinely believed Mussolini (and Hitler) were truly beneficent men.
But was he lying to himself, or engaged in self-deception?  I think this
likely, for someone as obviously intelligent as Pound.   But we can never be
entirely sure about the inner workings of his mind.  We can only speculate.

Was he "showing off"?  Frankly I think this is a non issue, as regards
Pound's support for Mussolini, Hitler, and Fascism.  Of course, Pound could
be accused of "showing off," but he could have chosen to show off in any
number of ways.  He did not have to support fascist ideology.

Did Pound "write without thinking"?  In one sense, yes; in another sense,
no.  Pound chose not to think about the possibility that Confucius, Hitler,
Confucius, and fascism were wrong.  They became matters of faith with him,
AND THIS IS THE GREAT DANGER FOR ANY THINKER!!!  If one idolizes, or
attributes near transcendent virtues to mere human beings, one falls into
the error of "hero-worship," mistaking the human for the divine.  Pound, in
my view, wrote some very incisive comments about the shortcomings in
Christian dogma.  However, he appeared to feel the lack of an ABSOLUTE.
That absolute for him became Confucian dogma, in the philosophical sphere;
and fascism in the contemporary socio-political and economic spheres.

<<And what about "The enormous tragedy of the dream in the peasant's bent
shoulders"?>>

What are you asking exactly?  That particular line is well written, but we
have to wonder what it means.  If Robert E. Lee wrote poems about the sad
hopes of Blacks in the South, however well written, we would have to wonder
about their significance.  Recall that in the Pisan Cantos Mussolini is
depicted as a martyr.  Yet "El Duce" was arguably the cause of most of the
misery experienced by the peasants from 1924 until the end of the war.

Robert E. Lee is still depicted in Southern textbooks as an honorable man
who fought on the wrong side.  Recent in Virginia, I have heard, blacks tore
down huge posters and burned other representations of Lee, saying as far as
they were concerned, he was as bad as Hitler.  Lee was, say many blacks, a
man who fought to defend the institution of slavery.  All this should be a
matter of great interest; the reputations of historical figures (generals,
politicians, and poets or literary figures who supported them) are
constantly under re-evaluation.  Some people call this "political
correctness".  I call this THINKING.

Pound did fall into error, in part, because he refused to think, he refused
to question his own chosen dogmas.  He used these dogmas, (Confucianism and
Fasicsm) to create for himself a vantage point from which he could criticize
aspects of capitalism.   Choosing to ignore the severe defects of those
dogmas throws his entire project into serious disarray.

Salut,

Wei
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