Jonathan,
Yes, the Yeats quote is helpful.  As for sincerity, I don't think it precludes
either inconsistency or erroneous thinking.  I'm not saying Pound had a coherent
or logical political philosophy.  He was deluded about Mussolini (sincerely but
foolishly); he imposed on Mussolini the heroism he so desperately hoped was
possible, much as he created his own mythologies of Confucianism, the Eleusinian
mysteries, and even his family.  But I think there is no question that he not
only believed deeply in the movement but believed that it was just -- as just as
those Ghibellines fighting the tyranny of the Pope in favor of a German emperor.
Pound's understanding of Italian fascism was willfully wrong, but no more so than
the idea many American leftists in the 1930s had of Stalin, and no more evil.
 
Pound was not alone; Italians are more divided on the issue today, as they were
then, than Wayne Pound's message from Rapallo might suggest, but Wayne is right
to point out that Fascism is not viewed with the horror it is in America.  The
Fascist party was outlawed after WWII but resurfaced later as the MSI, despised
by many but tolerated as a cost of a free society.  The Lega Lombarda and other
separatist movements in the North are Fascist too and have many followers.  The
issues seem more nuanced there than they are in the U.S.  Perhaps a country that
has known occupation is more accustomed to accomodation.  Fascism also took
different forms in different parts of the country.  Nowhere, however, were the
Italians like the Germans.  Their violence, while thuggish and nasty, tended to
be petty and random or personal rather than systematic and sweeping.  This is not
an apology for Italian Fascism, but it and its followers were not the same as
Nazis, which is sometimes suggested.
 
I don't know how much Pound knew about what was happening in Germany (we now know
Eliot knew).  I think it was Mary who once told me that there were all sorts of
crazy stories being circulated on both sides, including tales of American planes
dropping toys that exploded or contained deadly viruses.  No one on either side
believed such propaganda.  Again, I am not assuming that Pound knew or didn't
know about the death camps, but he might have discounted the stories if he heard
them.  He was certainly adept at selectively processing information.
 
Best, Patricia
 
 
Jonathan Morse wrote:
 
> I sort of see what you mean, Patricia. "The worst / Are full of passionate
> intensity," intoned Yeats, a great poet who stood with the worst. But boy,
> I wish I knew how to understand that hard word "sincerity."
>
> It fits Pound in one obvious biographical way: he held to his political and
> economic beliefs no matter what, at great cost to himself. And yet I should
> think sincerity must entail some element of free choice, and in that
> respect we have to worry a little when we apply the term to Pound. No
> economist of any standing has ever paid the slightest attention to Pound's
> ideas about money, for instance, but that rejection had no effect whatever
> on the curriculum of the Ezuversity. By contrast, John Crowe Ransom
> abandoned agrarianism after he worked systematically through the
> economists' criticisms of _I'll Take My Stand_ and concluded that the
> economists were right. You wouldn't call that insincere, would you? No;
> you'd just say that Ransom was a rational man trying to learn from his
> mistakes.
>
> Pound's other sincerities were equally durable in their defiance of
> reality. There's something to be said for punctual trains, for instance,
> but after 23 years of Fascism the Italians were happy enough to kick
> Mussolini's body to pieces. Fascism would seem not to have worked. No
> reflection of that little fact in Pound's oeuvre, though.
>
> And whatever it accomplished 2500 years ago, Confucianism as of the
> twentieth century was doing a lot more harm than good. It too didn't work.
> (Ask me about the status of women in South Korea before and after it became
> a predominantly Christian society.)
>
> And Pound's antisemitism was an affront to his own language, because it
> consisted entirely of cliches. When Pound was a young man, the
> anti-Dreyfusards and eugenists included many intelligent people among their
> numbers, but by the time he was 50 he was alone with the Jason Compsons.
>
> So many unconvinceabilities! And yet Pound is the man who said "Make it
> new." There's sincerity in that phrase, but I should think it's the
> sincerity of technique, not the sincerity of the sad stony heart. But
> sursum corda: the sincerity of technique is the one that didn't die on
> November 1, 1972.
>
> Jonathan Morse