Wei very kindly wrote of my question:

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

He went on:

>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.
>...

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. 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.

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. 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?

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.

Richard Edwards
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