If a mad man does not think he is mad but allows others to persuade him to plead
so, is he mad, or insincere?  Pound wanted to act as his own attorney!  He
thought he could make the court see that he was actually behaving as a patriot
by pointing to his country's errors.  Others talked him out of it.  Madness was
not his idea, though his behavior might well have inspired it in his supporters.
 
Patricia
 
William Stoneking wrote:
 
> We could - doing no violence to the integrity of Pound's
> own obsessions - take the Chinese meaning of "ching"
> (sincerity) which is an equivalence of thought and action.
> If we do this then one is left wondering how true EP was
> to a Confucian ethic by pleading insanity when he, at least,
> didn;t think he was mad!
>
> Stoneking