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Date: | Sun, 2 Jul 2000 20:34:51 -0500 |
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En Lin Wei wrote:
> If there
> were a fascist coup in the US would the study of Ezra Pound fare better,
> would it deteriorate, or would it stay more or less the same as it is now?
This is an unreal question since it (like the movie referred to in your
post and almost all films and novels of the "It can happen here" genre)
is abstracted from all those conditons within which such a coup would
make sense -- and it is in those conditions, in the whole social route
to the hypothetical coup, not in the mere coup itself, that the coup would
have meaning.
And those hypothetical conditions involve an even more massive set
of conditons: the general breakdown in peaceful capitalist rule which
must precede any recourse to openly violent rule. And it would be
within that general breakdown that the attitudes and social forces
would develop which would determine regime's attitude towards
"cultural studies" in the academy. In the abstract, the "same" kind
of regime, depending on conditions, might order all Pound's books
burned or might mandate their study at the core of the university
curriculum or anything in between.
Carrol Cox
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