Michael,
    " The sail of thinking keeps trimmed hard to the wind of the matter." -
Heidegger

----------
>From: Michael Springate <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Emerson- Pound
>Date: Wed, Jan 8, 2003, 12:29 AM
>

> 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.

    That is an important point and addresses the subject of the temporality
of the arts which has been raised here recently. Browning relaxing in sunny
Italy away from spats and collars watching the tanned bare-armed Italian
girls. Such expansion of vistas may be the key to the doors of time.
Browning und uberhaupt Pound find it. Heidegger found it in Holderlin's
"dichterisch wohnet der Mensch" "poetically man dwells". And this is an
answer to Surette's charge of Pound's "occultism". "Poetry does not fly
above and surmount the earth in order to escape it and hover over it. Poetry
is what first brings man onto the earth, making him belong to it, and thus
brings him into dwelling." -Heidegger
>
> 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.

    "Probably "generally" being qualification enough here still I am not
sure that you can make a case that it is Judaism and/or Buddhism or any
religion which dictates an economic system in Pound's analysis or anyone's.
"Avarice" the disease Pound acknowledged, and usury the symptom. But where
does Pound claim that usury is strictly a part of Judaism? Buddhists he
thought were just lazy and didn't do anything practical like Kung who spent
more of his time moralizing than chopping wood or carrying water,
apparently.
>
> 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.

    Would you define "devout" for me? As a secular humanist it is a
difficult term for me, but sometimes seems frightening in certain contexts.
>
> 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.)
    Yes, of course, I agree and even Pound acknowledged it. Oh,if his only
offence had bee a few really lousy poems. However, another problem arises
here, the problem with fundamentalists which goes deeper than their zealotry
for ironically more often than not their precious texts correctly confirm
their convictions or are the source of those convictions. But I await
Michael's definition of "devout".
>
> 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.

    Again what are the driving textual forces behind the history?
>
> 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.
    Because great art achieves atemporality and truth cannot be altered at
the whim of tin horn politicians.
>
> 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.
    No. V.S. Naipaul is better for that.
>
> He has strengths, he has limits, he has weaknesses. It’s good to keep in mind
> which is which.
>
>
> Michael