Dear Charles Moyer,

I have never doubted that you are an extraordinary fellow; nor have I ever
ceased to believe that your insights came from a profound depth, a cultured
mind, and a refined soul, and from a determination to get at the truth as
you see it, and to express that truth in a dramatic and original way, to
make your notions "palpable" if you will.

I offer you my sincere apology and heart felt regret if my high opinion of
you, and respect for your own point of view has not always been apparent.
In the heat of argument and discussion about "issues" it is easy to lose
one's better self, as I have done in too many posts.

----------

You wrote:

<<Pound's faith was that "Authority comes from right reason." I think he
may have gotten  that from Scotus Eriugena, but it doesn't really matter.>>


I believe you are correct in your attribution.


<<Everything I have read of the writings or sayings of Confucius seems to
say Kung believed this also, and this is why Pound thought so highly of
Confucius. >>

You and I can both agree that authority comes (in part, at least) from right
reason, and that all authority should be based on correct reasoning.



<<It didn't matter whether that authority generated from the
people, a leader, a king or the law or from heaven as long as it was from
"right reason" for then it was just and people should be satisfied. This is
my interpretation. >>

This is one interpretation of what Confucius meant, and it is understandable
that you might derive such an admirable precept from Confucius.  You are in
excellent company.  Many of the French Encyclopedists, along with Voltaire,
drew a similar conclusion about Confucius, and it is a fact that this
interpretatation of Confucian thought was a significant factor in
accelerating the development of French and European rationalism, and in
freeing Western thought from the intellectual stanglehold of the
Institutionalized Church.


[From the Chinese point of view, I might say, the exact opposite happened.
While Confucius, and Confucianism were used as a straightjacket for Chinese
thinkers, it was the importation of Western rationalist philosophers, such
as Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant, which helped to free Chinese thought
from the narrow constraints of Confucian orthodoxy]




<<Yours seems to be that the source is more important than
the substance, and you hold the originator responsible for all the failings
of his followers like blaming Jesus for all the travesties of the
Inquisition. We all err, perhaps I am erring in my assessment of your
interpretation. Am I?>>

I can see why you might believe that I hold the "source to be more important
than the substance," as you put it.  I would not say that you "err"; instead
I would propose that you and I have not yet effectively communicated the
essence of our views to one another, so that a complete and sympathetic
understanding of each other's stances would be rendered possible.  More on
that, later, and about the relationship between Jesus Christ and the
Inquisition, vs. Confucius and the institutional history of Confucianism.


<<"Warts" or "cancerous tumours" - I wouldn't touch that one with a
ten-foot pole.>>

That was a rather unfortunate, and unnecessarily provocative metaphor for me
to choose.  It does not further our conversation, so I retract it.


<<In 1963 I bought his "Confucius". I was twenty, I read in it this.

    1. He said: At fifteen I wanted to learn,
    2. At thirty I had a foundation.
    3. At forty, a certitude.
    4. At fifty, knew the orders of heaven.
    5. At sixty, was ready to listen to them.
    6. At seventy could follow my own heart's desire without overstepping
the t-square.>>

This is one of the most admirable of Confucius quotations, and has produced
such a huge amount of commentary as to render a simple interpretation of it
almost impossible.  Still, I share your general admiration for this
particular passage in the Analects.


<<I had no doubt the #1 was correct. I remembered myself as a ninth grader
so interested in school that I carried a briefcase despite the jokes and
jeers of my fellow students. I provided the daily Latin translation for the
rest of the class to copy before 8th. period Latin class.

Fifteen years later in 1973 I had college, some law school, and graduate
school (but no degree) under my hat band and was living in a one room cabin
in the woods working as a grill cook and reading every bit of Eastern
philosophy I could get my hands on. - A foundation. - #2
    At forty, 1983, my certitude was that those things I had learned really
did have something to do with living as I had developed my cabinet making
business with confidence  and lived in a fine old house I rebuilt with my
own hands with the help of a "wee wifey waintin' in a wee button-ben"
    At fifty I circled the above passage in my book in awe and wrote in the
margin "1993, I am fifty". The orders of heaven I had compiled in my studies
had taken the form of a perpetual lunar-solar circular calendar I fashioned
from my study of the alphabets of ancient languages. I got encouraging
correspondence from Gerald Hawkins on its applicability to the functioning
of the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge in England. It all merely
confirmed those orders of heaven that never cease to raise my failing
spirits as poetry does also.>>

Understood.  I greatly appreciate your explanation.  [As much as I love
poetry, I confess that my spirits tend to be raised more by certain types of
music --- Beethoven Quartets, and Mozart operas-- as well as by great
philosophy, especially Hegel, Plato, Lao Tze, Al-Farabi, and a host of other
theologians and metaphysicians.  So if I seem to be too hard on Pound, it is
not because I do not appreciate him, but because I do not feel he is central
to my aesthetic, or spiritual sustenance (he is, I would say, very important
to my intellectual sustenance).  The drawback is that I am not sufficiently
sensitive to large numbers of people on this list who do derive great
spiritual sustenance from Pound.  I am not sure how to address the issue,
and to make the types of the analyses I am making at the same time.




<<Sixty I have not yet reached, and I know that I have not yet learned to
listen to them(the orders of heaven).>>

We are all attempting to learn this, are we not?

<<Seventy seems a long way off and #6 seems somewhat enigmatic to me. I
know what the t-square is. I have made a living using it, yet I have no idea
what my "heart's desire" will be at seventy, and it frightens me sometimes
to think of it. I'm not sure I will hold up under the joy of it if Confucius
continues to be correct. What will I do with the self-destructing fool I've
chosen as my shadow companion? But I suspect that the "heart's desire" is
something like that of nature's, and if this is true then the I Ching tells

"Nature creates all beings without erring: this is its straightness. It
is calm and still: this is its Foursquareness. It tolerates all creatures
equally: this is its greatness".  >>

I must pass by these reflections with solemn and silent respect.  They are
worthy thoughts, noble sentiments, which I hope we all can strive to
contemplate on an ever more frequent basis as we reach that latest stage in
life.


<<Wei, I read your posting on the development of your interest in Pound
and found it interesting. This in a "round about way" gives you mine.
    I may have made some statements in the past which were insensitive to
others in the same way Pound could give offense, and I would like to
apologize for such shortsightedness. I'm still trying to learn to listen.
"To be men, not destroyers.">>

Thank you for such gracious words.

I hope you will accept my apology for the last message I posted, which does
not rise to a high level of intelligent discourse, and which neglects the
standard of intellectual courtesy to which I wish to strive to hold myself.

Your post reminds me of a very important truth:  often it is more important
and more useful to discover HOW someone arrives a their own perspective than
it is to understand in the abstract WHAT that perspective is.  In the
abstract, we will frequently disagree.  In the act of listening to each
others narrations of our PROCESSES of development, we will usually learn to
appreciate each other as unique beings, with understandable points of view.

"To be men, not destroyers," is among the greatest of Pound's
philosophico-poetic reflections.

Thanks very much for your post,

Wei















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