Thank you Bill Freind for the support of point one of
my three-point agenda a few days back, which i offer
in hopes of raising the tone of things. I was more
succint: Interrogate the terms.
 
Intended as kerosene to the then dwindling flame of
the fascism discussion, it fueled instead a bonfire of
professional rivalries. Because I used the Buff---
word. The fuel I threw on turned out to be cowpies
(curtesy of Mrs. O'Leary?) instead of kerosene.
 
Over thirty responses to my "Fascism & Pound" entry.
Only three of them responding to the agenda. Makes me
wonder, again, what this list is all about.
 
Why don't we stop batting academic bison chips and
just do something useful with all the computing power
out there: make a concordance to the current Cantos,
for ex.
 
Or a Pound logbook. I offer to do 1930-32.
 
 
Wayne
 
--- Bill Freind <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Gavin wrote:
>
> > He was a fascist.
>
> One of my biggest gripes about the studies of
> literature and fascism is that
> almost no one bothers to define the term. Pick up
> any history of generic fascism
> and a number of pages will be dedicated to
> discussing what -- if anything --
> fascism actually is. To take a simple example:
> Italian fascism is radically
> different in 1922, 1933, 1938 and 1942. Mussolini
> drew his support from an almost
> bizarre collection of people: socialists,
> revolutionary syndicalists, the arditi
> (Italian shock troops), the Futurists, conservative
> nationalists, etc. Later, he
> drew at least nominal support from the Vatican and
> big business. If Italian
> fascism is complicated, throw in German National
> Socialism, the various French
> varieties, the authoritarian governments in Spain,
> Portugal, Hungary, and even
> Juan Peron in Argentina and then come up with a
> definition.
>
> Did Pound support Mussolini? Of course. Does that
> make him a "fascist?" Not
> necessarily. Pound seems to disregard or perhaps
> willfully ignore many of the
> central tenets of fascism, especially  its emphasis
> on war and its nationalism.
> The core of Pound's political beliefs is an
> idiosyncratic Confucianism which makes
> him value the "insight" of certain powerful
> political leaders. That's why at the
> same time he's celebrating the Duce, he's
> corresponding with Bronson Cutting,
> Upton Sinclair, Huey Long, etc. etc. etc. Tim Redman
> uses the term "philofascist,"
> which seems right to me.
>
> A final polemic: too many of the studies of
> literature and fascism try to reduce
> fascism to a manageable bogeyman. As excellent as
> Casillo's book is on EP's
> anti-Semitism, it's an utter disaster on his
> politics: Casillo seems to want to
> make Pound a garden variety fascist, despite the
> fact that it's arguable whether
> such a thing even existed.
>
> Bill Freind
>
 
 
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