Mr. Moyer and Jon (and hopefully others),

Fakery:  “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the
conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.”  Emerson,
from “Self-Reliance.”

I do have serious questions about Pound that I ask in the final two long
paragraphs, if you want to skip ahead.  I need your help.  Thank you.

Which dishonest personae shall I choose today?  Do any of you have a
request?  I’m not dishonest Mr. Moyer, any more than a fiction writer, or
even Pound was, I can tell you that.  Integrity, honesty, sincerity,
authenticity, especially about intellectual and artistic issues is what I
got, and all I got, besides my kids.  It’s enough and more than what Jon
says his colleagues have, what’d he say, “fakery?”  I call it imitation.
Most people are mere imitators, some of us aren’t always imitators, and
when we are not imitators we are considered elitist, because we abhor,
despise fakery and imitation.  I’m not saying we despise them as people,
but the product of their work.  Today, I am an elitist.

Emerson’s relationship to economics, politics, and literature are much
clearer than Pound’s, as least for me.  Although I know Pound is labeled a
fascist, I’m not at all certain that his writings reflect that to be true;
is he labeled one merely by his affiliations? Or his he labeled a fascist
because he really was one?  With Emerson, his ideas lead to the oligarchic
plutocracy (that you mentioned), ruthless capitalism, and the
distinguishable postmodernist aesthetic and literature, as well as its
lineage (Whitman to  Hummer and Berstein.)  I’m not certain that we had to
go through modernism or even high modernism to get to where we are--maybe
Modernism was a transitional period, I’m not certain yet.  In comparison,
if we look at Pound as an Emersonian-like figure (by this I mean his
influence), I wonder where Pound’s writing leads him/us?  I’m not all that
familiar with Pound’s prose and letters, but I am familiar with much of
his poetry, although I can’t proclaim I understand it; and I probably
don’t considering the fact that I don’t now his prose or his letters.
Certainly, his work doesn’t bring us to the democratic ideal that you, me,
Gandhi, Mr. White, want.  We say, “hear, hear” or “here, here” with one
voice. Maybe, you and your entourage can help me?

Below is the quick low down on Emerson from my point of view.  I know I’m
not the first to express it, maybe I am; and really, I’m not one to make
huge citations either, so forgive me if I dismiss any requirement that I
pay my dues to the idea of intellectual property; what bull.  To address
Jon for a moment, again: yes, there are fakes all around you, it’s
imitation, nothing more.  There’s very little creativity within the
academy, just “fakery” as you suggest.  I won’t bore you all with
citations; it takes to much energy, and I can no longer tell you what
sometimes are my own ideas and the ideas of others.  I’ll give credit if I
know, but I’m not going to peruse my books; I’ve read a lot and there are
too books many that surround me.  I long ago came to realize that my
thoughts and ideas are not my own, if you know what I mean.  I am not a
sponsor of intellectual capital or its commodification.  Dumb ass Derrida
wasn’t so stupid I must tell you (yes there’s allusion, but do you know
what it is and its great complexity—doubt it, but maybe?)  Jon, I don’t
throw Derrida’s name around just to be one of the academic types that you
talk about; I can assure you I am not one of them, I am an outsider;
outsider to this group, too—I intend to remain so, even if it means I
never become a part of this Poundian Academy or the wonderful Academy that
you, Jon cant about.  If Derrida said anything, he said that language is
connected in a complex web that has a deep, deep history. When it becomes
apparent that I start thinking like any of you, that’s my cue to leave,
but that’s not yet.   Today, I am an elitist.

I’ve heard Jon’s story before; it’s an old one going back as far as the
sophists, probably back to the cave days, when somebody got pissed that
they were given credit for their first utterance, “Ugh!” I must say,
though, the academy is less creative than ever—they have sex academic
style, missionary style; or as the postmodernist would—snoop-doggy dog
style, like girls gone wild on spring break.  There are people, however,
within the Academic world, who aren’t a part of “Bird Hall,” and tenure
doesn’t come their way very easy, but they retain their integrity and my
respect, in lieu of a pension and job security.   “Bird Hall” isn’t for
me—what do they say, you know the cliché?...don’t shit on your own kind,
not if you got to eat, right Jon?  I don’t care about a pension or job
security; but integrity, yes, I do care about it as Pound did; it’s all I
got, because I don’t have a dime to my name and the journals won’t publish
my work, unless they mistakenly don’t “get it.”  Sometimes I do slip my
shit past them. Remember: I’m the asshole on this end remember; but I’m
very self-aware to that fact that I am an asshole, or a jerk as Mr. Moyer
amended for the benefit of others.  Mr. Moyer, I say this with affection:
you too are an asshole, but you know that, too.  I tell you nothing you
don’t already know.  So?  All that I have learned, including about Pound,
has come through my own initiative, by seeking the information, people’s
interpretation of the information, but most of it in the dull light of my
study, which isn’t even a study.  I don’t like that world Jon speaks
about; I despise it, although I pick and choose what I do within his
world, because I can.  I’ll go teach at some community college or shine
shoes instead if I have to.  As I said: today I am an elitist.  Anyway,
back to Pound and Emerson.

Government by the wealthy few is a huge problem as I see it; as you see
it; so even though we initially had some problems with my initial
provocations (the good kind) we do seem to agree on this matter, and I
suppose many more.  As you and others may recall Emerson wrote an essay,
"Wealth."  It seems that Emerson advocated an economic system that harbors
endemic poverty, although he wants to ameliorate its worst effects, but on
the other hand, he regrets the administration of such amelioration.  State
sponsored socialism isn't his answer, although he was not altogether
adverse to cooperative forms of socialism.  In "Wealth" he says:  "The
socialism of our day has done good service in setting men on thinking how
certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be
enjoyed by all."  Strangely enough though, he thought individuality, his
sacred self-reliant individualism, would be sacrificed.  I think it can be
argued that just the opposite is true, because with the larger
perspective, a universalization of other, under more "egalitarian"
perspective, allows for the expression of individuality to a wider degree;
whereas his type of individualism can only be expressed by those who
control resources, primarily property and money.  The right of property is
thus the right to unequal amounts of it.  By extension, the right of say,
individuality, whether we say either the expression or actualization of
it, is the right to unequal amounts of it.  As you know, Pounds expression
of his own individuality was met by government interference, not just
moral approbation.  Moral approbation in a system of cooperative
socialization may be morally justified, whereas the right to unequal
amounts of property and "individuality", has a dubious moral basis.
Emerson would say that the systemic inequalities is not systemic, but an
unfortunate accident.  He says:  "this accident, depending primarily on
the skill and virtues of the parties, of which there is every degree, and
secondarily on patrimony, falls unequally, and its rights of course are
unequal( in "Wealth").”  Accident and right are interchangeable terms
then.  I suppose what he means by accident, because he never really says,
must be luck, or maybe even fate.  In "Politics,"" Emerson claims that
people who control property should have greater political power--his idea
of equity, although he does express some concern that the rich will
interfere with the poor, and keep them poor.  Fucked up, right?  Where is
the opportunity for others to act self-reliantly in a system that both
politically and economically prevents the masses from acting
self-reliantly?  The pursuit of wealth; the pursuit of property is the
active manifestation of Emersonian self-reliance.  I do recognize that
Emerson saw this as a physical manifestation of self-reliance, and that it
can be argued that he advocated other forms of self-reliance,
specifically, intellectual self-reliance, which as we know, the elites,
mainly, the economic (and thus the political) elites, inevitably control
educational resources as well.

In his essay "Culture" though, he views the pursuit of wealth (remember we
inevitably equate this with social and political power), as
self-injurious, a form of selfishness, egotism, self-absorbed egotism.
This seems to contradict his advocacy of the pursuit of wealth, as
egotism, which is essential to his form of individualism; he says that his
age (and ours) is defined by property ownership, political importance, and
the "steady progress of the democratic element."  But as you rightly point
out, and Emerson also argued and advocated for, was actually oligarchic
plutocracy, not Democracy.  In "Society and Solitude" he equates the love
of wealth to the love of the beautiful:  "And indeed the love of wealth
seems to grow chiefly out of the root of the love of the Beautiful.  The
desire of gold is not for gold.  It is not the love of much wheat and wool
and house-hold-stuff.  It is the means of freedom and benefit ("Domestic
Life".)  I can only tell you that now this makes me say:  WOW, that's a
mighty big claim, closely tied to aesthetics, of course.  I've said enough
about this for now, except maybe, that we find the philosophical
justification in Locke.  There is more, but I need to stop here for now.

Okay, my question, Mr. Moyer, Jon, and group is: so what was Pound’s
political view in a nut shell.  Please try to write in your own words;
don’t merely imitate, but if you must quote Pound, which might be helpful,
please also tell me what you think the quote means, in language I, the
asshole, can understand.

Today, I am an elitist.

Jim Stoner



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