Richard Edwards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

<<Subject: Re: Was Pound Lying, Joking, Deceiving Himself, Showing Off, or
Not Thinking?

>Wei very kindly wrote of my question:

>This is an excellent question, well phrased, offering us many
>possibilities, and extremely difficult to answer.  ...

<<Of course the one possibility which my question omitted was the
possibility, never to be admitted by Wei, that Pound ACTUALLY MEANT WHAT HE
SAID. >>

I chose from the possibilities you offered.  I did say we cannot be sure
what Pound was ACTUALLY thinking when he wrote his statements about the
working man or about Mussolini.    You could be exactly right, and Pound
could have sincerely believed that Mussolini was a good man, and that
Mussolini was good for the working man.  If that is true, then Pound would
have to have been fairly stupid.  I am not very willing to accept that
premise.


<<The question was prompted by Wei's syllogism: Mussolini's welfare record
was very poor; Pound was a supporter of Mussolini; therefore Pound can't
have cared at all about people in need. I don't think that follows. >>

My "syllogism" would be a bit diiferent, (if my view has to be reduced to a
syllogism)

1)  "Mussolini's welfare record was very poor; "

I would rather say,

1)  Mussolini was a tyrant and dictator who took away from workers their
right to belong to independent trade unions, to bargain collectively, and
who helped Hitler and Franco to bomb the syndicalists out of existence in
Spain  (This is a bit different from the premise, you attributed to me.)

2)"Pound was a supporter of Mussolini; "

I would say instead,

2)  Of all prominent American intellectuals, Pound was the most enthusiastic
and avid  supporter of Mussolini, who never questioned once, in any of his
writings ANY apsect of Mussolini's or Hitler's social mistreatment of the
worker or the peasant (Also slightly different from the statement you
atrributed to me)



3)"therefore Pound can't have cared at all about people in need."

This was not my conclusion

A lot depends on what you mean by "cared for people in need."  The question
"what does Pound believe or care about" is perhaps a bit metaphysical.
Maybe it would be more useful to explore the question, "What values, ethical
principles, and theories of government are  in the Pound's writings?"   The
ideologies, theories, and principles expressed in the Cantos, in Pound's
prose, and in his radio broadcasts, I would say, are thoroughly antithetical
to the poor, to the working man, and to the peasant.   This might be a
clearer way of expressing the conclusion I would wish to draw.

<<It is one thing to say that Pound deceived himself about Mussolini. It is
another to suggest that he lied about his own political values, pretending
to be concerned about the people when in fact he was not.>>

I did not say Pound did not care about people.  I do say that in his written
work, he did not express any coherent concern for the life and welfare of
the common man.

<<Wei demonstrates
that Mussolini pretended to be concerned about the people when in fact he
was not. Is it not possible that Pound was simply taken in by this?>>

Pound was, I think, too intelligent for that.  Yes, it is **possible** he
was taken in.  But what exactly does "taken in" mean?  Was Pound
self-deceived?  I think we agree that that was a possibility.

<<Naturally I would accept that the whole question of Pound's "real"
political values is very vexed. Even before his fascist period he wrote
"humanity is malleable mud". And actually I think the first line of the
Pisan Cantos is an expansive gesture which the poem somehow fails to earn.
But I don't think
the matter is quite as clear-cut as Wei suggests.>>

I would be one of the first to admit that.  Nothing is as clear-cut as I, or
you, (or Pound), or anyone on this list would suggest.

Probably, as your question and post implies, Pound was being simultaneously
honest, dishonest, self-deceptive, humorous, provocative, dense, insightful,
and deliberately perverse (and many other things . . . . you can make your
own list of adjectives).  Of course it is possible to be a fascist and feel
concern for the working man, just as it was possible during the early 19th
century to care about blacks and be an advocate of slavery.   But it is not
a very coherent position.

Regards,

Wei

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