(continued from last post)

This explanation is notable for its paradoxical attitude toward "being
ruled" and "being exploited," an attitude not unlike Frobenius'. Pound
believes that certain people do not "deserve freedom;" they need to be
cow-herded. Yet he also exclaims against exploitation, on the basis of a
Confucian Ch'ing Ming (precise use of words), without ever explaining how
such a doctrine can end exploitation. How can the herd escape the
mistreatment of the herder (read, fascist authority), if the latter has the
absolute power to define both the use of words and the shape of social
structures?

Frobenius, like Pound, inveighed against exploitation, especially the
colonial exploitation of the Africans. In Der Ursprung der afrikanischen
[The Origin of African Cultures], he wrote,

What . . . we, conceited Europeans call world history,
has significance only for ourselves and the inha-
bitants of the small European peninsula, because it is
the world history of our own growth. . . for the time
being we are the tyrants of the earth, who subjugate
and rule the other peoples and races, and make it
seem as if the development of the culture of the
future could be founded on nothing else but our
soil and ourselves."
(Jahn, 17).

He condemned what he saw to be a merciless colonial policy.

With our iron fist we smash all other peoples.
We sow our colonies on the corpses of putrefying
races and burn down the homes of foreign develop-
ments in order to erect our palaces on the smoking
ruins. . . The European ocean of fire, which extends
across the Earth, may have destroyed within a few
decades, the largest part of living and dead "world
history."
(Jahn, 17).

Yet this virulent denunciation of European colonial policy in general was
contradicted by an extreme  enthusiasm for German imperialism. After meeting
with "Emperor Wilhelm,"

***
The prospect of imperial sponsorship for [Frobenius']
future journeys made him look for a spectacular
contribution to the glory of the German flag. He
had his collaborators estimate the cost of a
zeppelin station near Lake Chad, and. . . he proposed
in all seriousness, his bold project to the German
parliament with the following naive and childlike
argument: "With admirable élan the Frenchman has
pushed forward with his telegraph from the Senegal
to the Chari. He built railways. He built airports.
The Englishman has established two routes from the
coast to the heart of British Nigeria. . . There is nothing
the German can put beside this." Then Frobenius puts
forward a three-year plan. A road in Northern Cameroun
should be enlarged; every ten kilometers a landing place
for airships should be constructed beside it. Three
zeppelin hangars and two natural gas stations should
be built. Then the airships were to be transported by
sea from Germany to Africa. . . Frobenius' collaborators
estimated the costs at 37 million gold marks. And what
was the purpose of all this? Frobenius rejected consi-
derations of utility such as the British or French might
have envisaged. "Even more than in Europe, the ruler
of Africa is judged by Africans in terms of his
achievements," Frobenius explained to the delegates.
"He who has the highest prestige will, according to an
ancient African principle, have the higher income"
(Jahn, 12).

In asking the delegates to make their decision based on a policy that would
pursue "the higher income," Frobenius was fostering the most reckless sort
of imperialist policy, and doing nothing to prevent what he supposedly
decried: the destruction "within a few decades of the largest part of living
and dead 'world history.' " This paradoxical attitude may have rubbed off on
Pound, who simultaneously sought to transmit Chinese culture from East to
West, while encouraging the destruction of contemporary Chinese society by
Japanese military action; and who also condemned British imperialism in
Nigeria, while supporting the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia.
How much of Pound's outlook, in this respect, was derived from Frobenius is
difficult to say. At the very least, Pound's belief in Empire and the racial
superiority of colonizer over the colonized was very similar to Frobenius'
view. The most significant difference was in Pound's interest in China as
the paradigmatic Empire-builder, or, more specifically, in China as a model
for the modern Italian Empire.
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