In a message dated 06/02/2000 9:27:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<
 This is a perfect example of what has been wrong with so many of the posts
that
 have attempted to defend Pound's politics: it pretty much ignores my
original post
 to bash an argument I never made. Specifically:

 [log in to unmask] wrote:

 > the issue is not whether Pound was democratic, but that he didn't despise
 > governments because they were democratic.

 I have no idea what this means. What I said was that Pound was deeply
skeptical of
 representative democracy. What I also said was that Pound really didn't care
much
 about the specifics of governments; instead, he was much more attracted to
the
 strong leader.

 > as far as saying that he believed
 > in the constitution, I think we can take him at his word, remembering, of
 > course, that the our concepts of the constitution are not the same.

 Why should we take him at his word, since it seems anomalous (to put it
mildly) to
 suggest that someone who repeatedly endorses dictators and ruling elites
could *at
 the same time* support the Constitution of a republican democracy?

 > my
 > objection is to the sweeping denunciations of Pound and his politics, as if
 > nothing he believed in wasn't somehow vitiated or contaminated by his more
 > obnoxious beliefs.

 I disagree with that, too. However, I'd suggest the bigger problem is those
who
 would ignore his politics -- and a few people here have come very close to
that.

 >  there's merit in much of what he had to say about
 > politics, as well as his economic positions.

 Right, but isn't that true of almost every political movement in history? One
 would have to be pretty dense not to spot the problems between the wars.

 > the ugliness of Pound is not
 > news, and to imply, as wei has done, that his sins outweigh his value, is,
 > from my point of view, simply wrong.

 I disagree with that argument, too. However, I completely reject the claims
that
 the Cantos are not explicitly political, or that Pound was a relatively
orthodox
 Jeffersonian.

 >
 > Pound borrowed from many sources, so to say that the key to understanding
him
 > is to understand his Confucianism is to reduce him to that, which is,
again,
 > unhelpful.

 Again, that's not what I said. Instead, I said the key to understanding his
 politics is to understand his Confucianism.

 >  the genius of Pound's poetry is that it isn't reductive, but, on
 > the contrary,  it increases and expands the experience.  as has been
pointed

 > out, Mussolini's involvement in the Cantos is no greater than, Jefferson's
or
 > Malatesta's.

 Which is precisely why my post was about Confucius, not Mussolini. The
standard
 way to reject the argument that the political vision of the Cantos is
totalitarian
 is to count the references to Mussolini and Hitler. As we all know, there
really
 aren't that many of them. However, as I said, Pound's Confucianism leads him
to
 celebrate strong and even totalitarian leaders. As a result, I think it's
 perfectly reasonable to say that the political vision of the Cantos aspires
to
 totalitarianism. To be blunt, it's hard for me to see how anyone could argue
 otherwise.

 > To say that Mussolini is central to the Cantos, and thus to
 > Pound,

 Where is this coming from? I never said anything like this.

 > makes one wonder how Mussolini & Confucius can simultaneously occupy
 > the same place, unless he's implying that there's no difference between the
 > two.

 Pound's Mussolini is a Confucian leader.Does that even need to be argued?
Pound
 himself says it in a number of places. *Every* celebrated leader in the
Cantos is
 a Confucian leader.

 > I don't get the impression that anyone is trying to sanitize Pound's
 > politics, and I find the suggestion offensive.

 As I said above, I've seen people claim that Pound was essentially an
orthodox
 Jeffersonian who supported representative democracy. Given the extraordinary
 number of places that directly contradict that view, I consider that an
attempt to
 sanitize his politics. I think the reason that some people are rewriting
Pound's
 political commitments isn't because those correspondents themselves have
 questionable politics; instead, it's because they see a threat to Pound's
poetic
 achievement. In the wake of hatchet jobs like Casillo's book, that's not
 unfounded. At the same time, Casillo does an excellent job at demolishing the
 extenuations which too many critics invented for Pound's totalitarianism and
 anti-Semitism, and we should be very careful to avoid a return to those
 indefensible positions.


 Bill Freind

  >>