WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MITZVA ?
 
 
>From: "Jonathan P. Gill" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
>  <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Anti-Semitism: getting started understanding it
>Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 09:37:00 -0400
>
>Fellow Poundians:
>
>I fear from Tim Romano's letter that some of us may be getting our
>knowledge of Judaism from Pound--a very bad idea.
>
>As regards interest and gentiles, the Hebrew Scriptures have hundreds of
>laws, articulated in a variety of confusing ways (hence the secondary,
>tertiary legal literature). For every rule that talks about charging
>interest only to gentiles, there's one that says Jews are obligated to
>treat gentiles better than fellow Jews.
>
>As for alleged Jewish shame about coition, this seems to be some sort of
>retroactive Pauline or Augustine influence.  Far from being considered a
>bad thing, sex is part of man's side of the covenant--every observant Jew
>knows that heterosexual intercourse in considered a mitzvah--especially on
>the Sabbath!
>
>I'm not blind to the restrictions in Jewish law on other kinds of sex
>(homosexuality, onanism, etc.)--but I suspect that, as usual, Pound was
>alot closer to the Jews on this issue that he was willing to admit.
>
>By the way, I'd like to hear from Leon Surette more often on this list.
>For now, I wonder how he compares his own view of Pound's "conversion" to
>anti-semitism (apologies for the paraphrase) to that of Wendy Flory, who
>dates it to 1935 and gives Ethiopia as the reason.
>
>Jonathan Gill
>Columbia University
>
>
>
>On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, Tim Romano wrote:
>
> > Tim,
> > I won't suggest any literature that addresses your basic incomprehension
>of
> > the related hatreds. But hatred (racial, tribal, etc) does not seem
> > unnatural to me -- it seems more the anthropological rule than the
> > exception.  The Jews considered themselves the Chosen Race. African
>tribes
> > massacre each other. Many Koreans despise whites. The Japanese consider
> > themselves superior. Many whites consider blacks to be inferior. The
>ancient
> > Saxons thought the dark-skinned Britons were an inferior race. Not a
>modern
> > phenomenon by any means.  Genocide is nothing new. These feelings are
> > perhaps instinctual.
> >
> > But I have not encountered anything that I would regard as racial or
>tribal
> > hatred in Pound's writings, though I've yet to read the Agresti letters
>and
> > am not very far into Pound's wartime radio broadcasts, and maybe there
>is
> > evidence of this kind of hatred to be found in the things I haven't read
> > yet. In one of his wartime broadcasts, Pound actually speaks out against
>the
> > physical stereotyping of the Japanese in Zukor's animated cartoons.
> >
> > In what I have read of his, Pound's "anti-Semiticism" is
> > culturally/economically based.  Deuteronomy permits the Jews when
> > moneylending to charge interest to Gentiles only. Pound had great
>antipathy
> > for Jewish monotheism and the shame in which it shrouds the human act of
> > coition. There are things one might reasonably hate about Jewish culture
> > which have nothing to do with racial or tribal hatred, or hatred of any
> > individual human being who happens to have been raised as a Jew, just as
>one
> > might despise the practice of female infanticide or female genital
> > mutilation or the chopping off of the hands of petty thieves or the use
>of
> > the flagellum.  Some cultures are more humane than others, if not more
> > human.
> >
> > Tim Romano
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Tim Bray <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Monday, 18 Oct 1999 12:27 AM
> > Subject: Anti-Semitism: getting started understanding it
> >
> >
> > > As a well-read non-humanist in his 40s who has spent time in the third
> > > world and seen tribal hate at work, the problem I have with all the
> > holocaust
> > > literature is that it fails to address my basic incomprehension as to
>how
> > this
> > > could have happened.  I.e. how intelligent well-educated people (eg
>EP,
> > nuts
> > > maybe, smart probably, well-educated definitely) can have thought such
> > > silly things and done such evil things?  The tribal hate I've seen
>could
> > not
> > > survive in the absence of real immediate grievance (they killed my
> > brother)
> > > and the presence of a decent education (history and ethics are
> > complicated).
> > >
> > > So, on the assumption that people who agonize over EP know something
>about
> > > this subject, what would be a good recommendation for literature to
> > address
> > > this basic incomprehension? -T.
> > >
> > >
> >
 
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