Pound's puerile, moralistic view of history is no guide to the real world,
I'm afraid.  Civilizations occasionally profess to live by principles, but
power is their and our bottom line.  I do believe, however, that Western
civilization is the only one ever to even profess humane ideals--and, when
we can afford to, we actually try to put these fine principles into
practice.  In principle, for example, we care about the Other and we even
profess love for our fellows.  In no other region of the world except the
West have such ideals ever been professed, and in fact they appear
laughable to every other culture on earth.  It is true that we betray our
gods whenever it is necessary or expedient to do so, but our gods are
nevertheless nicer guys than others' gods.  Pound is important because he
reminds us of who our gods are, but his hope that, in historical time,
principle will someday guide practice is utopian.  Pray to god but pass the
ammo.
==Dan

At 09:42 PM 02/12/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>My response to the below post takes off from Ezra Pound's flat-out
>detestation of war, which has been attested to on this list just recently
>with a posting of relevant verses from the Cantos, and which was what
>attracted me to him in 1950 and has kept me convinced ever since that the
>warfomenters in the West are the real betrayers. That our true Western
>(certainly American) instinct as to "les autres" is to live and let live. It
>is enough to see to one's own conduct. To take a God-like stance and presume
>to know how history is to be managed and what "must" be done violently to
>save the day, is as near madness as I care to come. 1600 years ago Augustine
>wrote about the two cities, man's and God's, and the hallmark of man's is
>the desire to dominate, libido dominandi, the lust for, the thrust to, power
>and wealth. We now are at the end of the Nietzsche anti-Christ craziness
>which puts madmens' drive for control in place of any reverence for the way
>or the Tao or the truth. We have given up principle for gross economic
>expediency and are giving up liberty for God alone knows what, and the
>probable payoff in blood and ruin is beyond imagining. Presumably the
>juggernaut is unstoppable, but if Pound had been listened to in the 1940s
>and 1050s or at any point since, we would not be in the present mess.
>Anti-semitism is the biggest red herring in the whole business. Forget that,
>and concentrate on war makers, war mongers, munitions makers, and usurers.
>No doubt vastly more nominal Christians, or at least goys, in that lot than
>nominal Jews, which I rather think is all that Perlman is. I would give much
>(if I had it) to stop the present rush to war. If we turn out the Western
>light of reason and charity and faith and hope and humility, what conscience
>could we be said to have left? Tom White
>
> > From: bob scheetz <[log in to unmask]>
> > Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> > <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 22:14:34 -0500
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: laureates against the war
> >
> > Daniel Pearlman writes:
> > Gentlemen,
> >> moral issues take a back seat here.  We are witnessing a life and death
> >> struggle for the survival of the Western way of life against an absolutely
> >> relentless militant Islam ...
> >
> > Dan Pearlman is right.  Saddam/WOMD' s are just a convenient bogey for the
> > pavlovian masses.  The elite think tank'rs (Richard Perle's group) see a
> > malthusian oil supply situation in the next 25 yrs with no possibility of
> > averting it with new tech.  Central asia and the middle east are the
> > strategic real estate and long before 9/11 the bush team had determined
> upon
> > the need to create a new world order that would see the re-colonization of
> > that area.  So the question you have to answer is, Are you willing to pay
> > for your good conscience with turning out the light of Western History?
> > ...are you will to accept it is our turn to be the fellaheen civ?

=====================================================
Dan Pearlman's home page:
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