"What AIDS is to the the body,
American popular culture is to the mind."- Ozzy Osbourne

Stoner James wrote:

> Here is a simple definition elitist or élitist that works well.
>
> Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition.  1995.
>
> elitist or élitist
>
> NOUN: One who despises people or things regarded as inferior, especially
> because of social or intellectual pretension: snob. Informal : snoot. See
> ATTITUDE, SELF-LOVE.
>
> ADJECTIVE: Characteristic of or resembling a snob: snobbish, snobby.
> Informal : high-hat, snooty, stuck-up, uppish, uppity. See ATTITUDE,
> SELF-LOVE.
>
> I don't think we need to complicate the definition of "elitist" or
> "elitism."  It's DESCRIPTIVE of attitude of a person or group, and from my
> position it is morally blameworthy, if I can be bold enough to state my
> judgment.  Does that make me an elitist?  If I should blame a murderer,
> finding his actions morally blameworthy, does that make me an elitist?
>
> How does it fit certain Poundian's or other individuals or groups within
> the poetry world?  Well, it has negative consequences and eliminates the
> possibility of alternative positions. Such groups and persons are often
> dictatorial, authoritarian (not authoritative -- a difference); they
> despise, and believe others are inferior, whether its economically,
> socially, intellectually, artistically, etc.  A person is NOT an elitist
> merely because they have read Ovid, Homer, Chaucer, Dante, etc.  They are
> elitist if they despise others for not having read these folks.  They are
> elitist if they believe others are interior.  Now, “if this average Joe is
> at a party where everyone is discussing the latest show that they've seen
> on TV or the latest movie, is it his responsibility to change the subject
> and get them interested in Chaucer?”  Well, if you are inclined to relate
> Chaucer “stories” without an attitude that views these people as inferior,
> and do so in an interesting way, you are likely to get people to listen.
> Is it your responsibility?  Yes, if you believe it is important to you,
> and you are genuinely interested in the topic, and want others interested
> as well.  Do you believe it’s important, and can you discuss Chaucer
> without sounding like some pompous stuffed ass?  I guess that’s the point.
>  I have no use for poetry that is embedded with elitist’s attitudes as I
> have defined them.  You will be charged as an elitist if you make others
> feel inferior, if you despise them for not knowing Chaucer.  I often
> discuss highly intellectual topics in everyday speech and people love to
> discuss them, just for the mere pleasure of doing so.  I also value their
> views of the subject.  So, I could talk about the Chaucer stories and
> people can tell their own stories.  It’s mutual and reciprocal, and we
> both learn something along the way.  You are charged as an elitist if you
> carry the pompous, stuffy, snobbish, attitude—look upon them as inferior
> and despise them as a result.  That is the way of fascism.
>
> How does this relate to Pound and his work?  We can say Pound the person
> is morally blameworthy because he was an elitist (I assume this to be
> self-evident based on his biographical facts.)  Obviously, as Davis tells
> us (in a review for the American Poetry Review), the man can be condemned,
> but his work cannot be condemned because we should not judge “a particular
> work of art to be immoral because of the author’s immorality, or the
> immorality of his other works. “To do so would be to predetermine our
> response. No, the work of art must be judged solely on its own merit,
> which requires objectivity often to be affected only by its isolation.”
> He goes on to say: “Now I take it for granted that a work of art can be
> immoral. Nor do I think a convincing argument can be made that moral
> criteria must be, a priori, excluded from artistic judgment, though their
> inclusion there is not always applicable.   Moral criteria should intrude
> into literary criticism only when moral issues intrude into the contents
> of literature. Quite simply, the degree to which Pound’s fascist and
> anti-Semitic opinions should enter into literary judgment is the degree to
> which they enter into his poetry. Now such opinions appear in Pound’s
> poetry only in his later work, The Cantos, and there very infrequently. In
> an epic poem stretching some 800 pages there are, if one compiled the
> passages, perhaps three or four pages of objectionable material. The
> immorality of his verse is, after all, demonstrably slight.”
>
> I would suggest that it could be argued that most of the Cantos, if looked
> at as a whole, with it’s underlying elitist propagations, is morally
> blameworthy, not merely because of anti-Semitic and fascist views, but on
> the basis of its tone, the attitude—inferiority and despise.  Such an
> argument might be wrong.  Nevertheless, if such an argument were indeed
> true and supported, Pound should be taught, just as Baudelaire, should be
> taught.  Underneath their elitist surface are aesthetic insights. The work
> should be studied for its cultural significance, not so much for its
> artistic or poetic significance.  We can learn much about Pound’s time
> through his work.  He was a receptacle for which the elitist fascist
> masses and leaders could pour their miserable poesy?
>
> Poetic Encounter
>
> “There you sit, all alone, with your pen in your hand,
> In that darkened room like you’re
> Buried in a pile of shit,” she said standing
> At the door, mechanically straight;
> Her feet bare, one shorter than the other.
> He just kept writing.
> She made only a sound.
> “Writing that same old story,” she said. “Listen to me,
> I am the world.”
> He kept on writing; his figure, like a poem.
> She pulled the pen from his hands.
> “Give that back to me!”
> “You sound like a child losing
> A new toy. Open your ears. I said
> It’s that same old story.”
> “Yes, you, entering this room,
> Day-after-day, spouting
> That same old tune, breaking
> Your own monotony.”
>  “That’s not what I mean. Can’t
> You just be like me and everybody else.”
> “Do you have something to say? Say it well—
> Something of substance or not.”
> She stumbled on that left foot as she left the room.
> “That’s what I thought.”
> He pulled a new pen out of his pocket.
>
> My name is James Stoner, not Stoner James.  I don’t smoke pot (unless you
> twist my arm.)  My opinion changes often as well.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> http://mailplus.yahoo.com