Bob:

I take your contrast of Emerson-Pound seriously. You may well be right,
although I hadn’t seen it that way. Also, I am challenged by your thought that
Emerson was on the way to Foucault. I wish it were so. Can you add a bit on
that, in due time?

I agree with your clever adjectives for Pound, rooted in myth, romance and
cultural nostalgia, and you are right, certainly, that he does not share the
idealistic structures of Kant, Hegel and Spengler. However, I think it a
mistake not to take the idealist/materialist dichotomy seriously in twentieth
century thought (especially European thought). On the ground, that was how the
popular political struggle was framed, and Pound knew which side he was
fighting on, and who he was fighting against. Might you agree that Pound saw
his Cantos not only as informed by Dante, but as an antidote to Das Capital -
i.e.: that Pound felt he knew the “real” principles of history better than
anyone alive, and he would prove it, by gathering from human history those
elements that would best define hell, purgatory and heaven?

And, this is the important point, sequence in history didn't much interest
him, association of like to like did.

I remember reading Pound's correspondence to Santayana, and I remember feeling
then that he was trying out "the ideogrammatic method" as an idealist
structure of genuine philosophical importance. Santayana didn't bite. Nor
would I.

Pound's idealism was pretty raw, and not as subtle or powerful (not as
labored?) as Kant and Hegel, but idealist all the same.  But EP, unlike most
idealists, was passionate about the relation of cultural assumptions to
economic structure. Generally, he condemns Judaism (and Buddhism, which always
seems to go unmentioned) as necessarily leading to a bad economic system. This
is false.

The most effective terrorism of our time may, in fact, turn out to be the
assassination of Rabin, the Israeli architect of the Oslo accords. It was a
death supported by the right in Israel, who have controlled the anti-peace
agenda ever since. No-one, at the time, expected the United States to support
the Israeli turn to the extreme right (it was thought that a line had been
crossed and America would work to make its influence even more moderating),
but this did not happen. In fact, America has never more vigorously supported
the Israeli anti-peace parties.

There are historical causes for that American support. Reading the bible, old
testament or new, won’t help you understand what those reasons are, no matter
what the religious affiliations of the people involved.

There is a symbiotic relationship between Tel Aviv and Washington, and it is
dangerous for Americans, Israelis and Muslims (not in that order).

There are devout Jews who fought, and continue to fight, this turn for the
worse, there are devout Jews working for economic justice in Palestine, Israel
and elsewhere. I shouldn’t have to say that, but it seems necessary.

Unfortunately, the peace movement in Israel is losing the battle, not least
because of the massive support from “Christian” America for its bitter
opponents.

The point is, there are historical reasons, developed through sequences of
actions, which led us to our current situation. There is not a simple
one-to-one relationship between ancient text (the Torah, for instance) and our
society (however much the fundamentalists want us to believe that). Nor is
there a simple one-to-one between following any given religion and moral or
immoral behavior (as defined by the Geneva conventions, for example). Pound
got caught in these simplistic, crude, and dangerous simplifications. (I think
even Charles agrees to that, but wants to cordon it off as only in the
“pathetic” broadcasts.)

Which is hardly to say that Pound was alone.

Unfortunately, the “ideogrammatic” approach is exceedingly dominant in public
discourse.

It is to be found in the  approach of the American and British governments in
their dealing with the Mid-East. The public is intentionally kept ignorant of
history, that is, kept ignorant of the determining forces in the region. In
effect, cause and effect history is replaced by their own “ideogrammatic”
history tailored to their nefarious ends: Arabs, jihad, terrorists, madness,
mass destruction.

It is a kind of “like to like” litany of “evils”. Not historically justified
(or justifiable), but of proven “associative” worth.

One of the most attractive features of Pound is his continued insistence that
history is important. However, the dominant principle upon which he
constructed his writing of history in his major work is ahistorical.

So, to answer your question, no, I don’t have that twinge of doubt.

To answer Charles, yes, monetary literacy is related to freedom, and the
selling of arms is a cause of war, and Pound is rightly adamant on both these
points. And he brings that into his poetry, and it does belong in “great “
poetry.

That makes him aware, courageous, and of some moral weight.

But seriously, I hope you are not reading Pound to understand monetary
history,  or to give you pertinent information on the workings of the arms
industry, either past or present, or, for that matter, reading Pound to
understand the Mid-East.

He has strengths, he has limits, he has weaknesses. It’s good to keep in mind
which is which.


Michael