gee, gavin, take some valium or something.  it's pointless to get exercised
by these crass simplifications that are endemic to institutionalized
breeding, and which are, as a friend of mine would say, the result of the
slavish obeisance to "objective" paradigms which suppose that if you can say
one thing about a culture, you've said everything.  it doesn't seem to occur
to the official pronouncers that the retroactive application of categories
might somehow be missing something, as in the current example of reducing the
thoughts and writings of Confucius to a label like "patriarchal," as if
anyone embracing any confucian concept is immediately tainted by sexism, to
use the term that's really operative here (i.e., if one reads M. Levi-Strauss
on the subject, one would quickly see that there's the possibility of sexism
in any society, including matriarchal societies). needless to say, it's not
even Confucius we're concerned with here, but with Pound's rendering of
Confucius, and a reader's take on this is dependent on her or his generosity
of spirit.
 
joe brennan
 
 
 
In a message dated 12/09/1999 12:46:17 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
 
<<
 But if I read one more comment about the Patriarchy of Confucianism v.
 The Superiority of Western Social Structure with Particular Emphasis on
 Bible Thumping--I think I shall become violently ill. The West is still
 patriarchal, and might I add, Big Time--it's just that now it pretends
 it isn't. It simply gives lie to the notion that religion or any kind of
 specific code is necessary to perpetuate patriarchal thought and
 behavior.
 
 GAVIN
  >>