Jonathan,
 
Did Pound ever study of the secondary and tertiary exegetical literature of
Hebrew scripture to get a more complete view of the subtleties of the Jewish
religion(s)? Judging from the way Pound's mind usually works, I think he
would have reached his understanding of Jewish monotheism via the "Old
Testament."  Or am I wrong about this? The pervasive attitude towards human
sexuality in the Old Testament is quite different from the attitude towards
the same which pervades the literature and art of polytheistic Greece, and
no doubt quite different also from that of most "observant" Jews today. I am
not saying that there is no such thing as good wholesome sex among
contemporary observant Jews! What I am saying is that the pervasive attitude
in the Old Testament towards any kind of sexual abandon or sexual departure
(fornication, adultery, onanism, homosexuality, whatever else) is that it
was illicit big time (shameful behavior) and ought to be punished severely,
and Pound did not like that at all. He associated Judaism with the early
patristic and then later with the medieval Christian tradition (with the
exception of Eriugena, and separated in his mind from Provence) in which
human sexuality was linked to shame, generation with corruption.
 
Tim Romano
 
P.S. I'm not sure I know what you meant by "retroactive influence."  Are you
suggesting that one must be careful not to view the Old Testament through an
early patristic Christian filter?
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan P. Gill <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, 18 Oct 1999 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: Anti-Semitism: getting started understanding it
 
 
> 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.
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>