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From:
En Lin Wei <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
- Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 25 Jul 2000 08:26:19 GMT
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James Hughes wrote,


>My dear Wei - I hope you will excuse the tardiness of my response; a
>tardiness arising from the combination of illness and my university =
>reading
>list. Nonetheless, I now offer my (belated) riposte to your perceptive
>dissection of my remarks.
>

I am pleased that you responded.  The moment in which you respond is not
problematic for me.

>First, may I thank you for taking the time to suggest possible reading
>material: as an 18 year old student I am keen to acquire knowledge as
>quickly as possible, particularly when that knowledge pertains to Pound =
>(or
>to Wallace Stevens, if you, or anyone else is interested). For this I am
>grateful - thankyou.

You are quite welcome.  I am pleased to offer help in any way.

>
>1. With regard to your inaugural observations-
>
>"We cannot simply say, "Pound was against usury," and end our inquiry
>there"
>
>- I agree wholeheartedly. Moreover, I believe that I am capable of
>responding to the question that follows ("What exactly about usury does
>Pound condemn?"). As a follower of Major Douglas' school of Social =
>Credit,
>Pound no doubt felt that the value of money was, in the words of Thom =
>Gunn, "false and arbitrary", and as a primarily capitalist society =
>revolved about such values, the world at large was tainted, contaminated =
>in its entirety by this sole dram of eale. Thus, it was the wider =
>consequences of usury that
>Pound detested: the manner in which capitalist abstractions - such as
>interest and credit - spread their cancer far beyond the realms of =
>economics
>that he refused to ignore. In Pound's eyes, usury/usura is, as Canto XLV
>vividly informs us, "CONTRA NATURAM"; it is, he rages, a "sin against
>nature". Furthermore, the manner in which this particular Canto is =
>littered
>with references to activities far removed from the economic sphere
>indicates exactly what Pound hated about Usura: namely the manner in =
>which
>it perverts all aspects of life.
>

Yes.  This is an excellent summary of Pound's attitude toward usury,
especially in regard to his interest in Douglas's "Social Credit" theory,
which is quite an interesting construction.  You might wish to be aware of
the fact that when Douglas condemned Mussolini, Pound decided to throw his
support behind the latter.  At that point he began to imbibe the theories of
fascist economists such as Odon Por.


>2.Your second query is more difficult for me to answer. My knowledge of
>Fascist politics, after all, is terribly thin. However, I believe Pound
>differed from the "traditional fascist" in a single major fashion. For =
>as I
>understand it, it was Pound's dislike of usura and capitalism that =
>caused
>him to be attracted to Mussolini and his policies - not
>vice-versa.

This point is arguable.  We need to examine whether Pound's interest in
fascism might have been stimulated by some other predispostion or interest.
Of course it would be clear to you that one can dislike usura and capitalism
without becoming a fascist.    The disapproval of capitalism can be looked
at as a necessary, but not as a sufficient condition for Pound's strong
commitment to fascism.

>Thus, because fascism and racism go hand in hand, Pound came =
>to deride and denigrate the Jews - a race associated with money-lending =
>and
>usura long before the twentieth century.

The asssocation was a long-standing one, but mostly in the minds of people
who were ignorant of real historical circumstances, or who sought to find
scapegoats for political purposes.  Many intelligent people were able to see
beyond the narrow bounds of anti-semitism, to a greater or lesser degree.

>Indeed, we need not look hard
>through the European canon in order to illustrate this point: =
>Shakespeare's Shylock is an excellent example.

The Shylock issue is a complex one.  The "if am pricked, do I not bleed?"
speech, is seen by many as evidence that Shakespeare used the stereotype
(because it was politically required of him), but that he twisted it
substantially to show that Jews were just as human as anyone else, and not
really deserving of scorn.  If you watch Lawrence Olivier's performance of
the role of Shylock, you will note this.  (Available in most university
video libraries).


>It is here, then, that =
>Pound and his "condemnation" break away from their archetypal fascist =
>framework. For if I may make so bold an assertion, most fascist =
>ideologies use economic arguments to support primarily SOCIAL theories; =
>put simply, they condemn usura in order that they may condemn the Jews =
>(or any other creed
>who do not conform to their misguided social ideals).

That is a very interesting observation, and probably very true in certain
cases.  Hitler, we might argue, developed his Nazism along the lines you
suggest.  But the real inventor of fascism was Mussolini, who took power in
1922.  Anti-semitism was not a part of his fascist philosophy, and was only
incorporated into Italian fascism much later, as part of a necessary
"modification" of the doctrine to secure the alliance between Fascist Italy
and Nazi Germany. In fact, the anti-semitic laws did not come into effect in
Italy until World War Two was well under way.

I might add here, that Pound's anti-semitism permeated his outlook, as
expressed in the Radio Broadcasts, and that he was never asked by his
superiors at Radio Rome, to make anti-semitic remarks.  Pound's
anti-semitism was quite excessive in comparison to the sentiments held by
most Italian fascists, throughout virtually the entire period of Mussolini's
dicatorship.

Theirs, then, is a
>racial agenda. By contrast, Pound's real hatred was usura: his was an =
>outlook INITIALLY monetary (that is to say concerned with the values of =
>work and society) rather than intrinsically fascist or racist. That it =
>became both these things, this said, is beyond doubt - and here I cannot =
>exonerate him.

The difficulty lies in determining whether Pound really hated usury, or just
used the idea of hating usury to castigate the West (specifically the US and
Britain) for other difficult-to-fathom reasons.  Pound never opposed the
oppressive nature of the fascist or the Nazi socio-economic orders.  He
opposed the cruelty of British imperialism in Africa, but cried, "go
forward" to the Italian imperialists, saying of the fascists trying to
conquer Ethiopia, "I hope they get every inch of it."

>
>3. No one NEED condemn capitalism or usury, but all have the RIGHT to do =
>so.
>Personally, I consider capitalism a flawed concept at best, and at worst =
>an
>entirely misguided idea.

You and I agree fully on this point.

>As you say, any society that enables a tiny
>percentage of its population to gain control of an enormous share of its
>wealth or financial resources is clearly failing somewhere. However, =
>there
>appears no obvious "solution" to this problem: fascism is evidently =
>repellent to us all, and Confucianism is, equally evidently, not a =
>viable alternative, at least not in the West.

Nor has it been in the East.  Confucianism and Fascism, as Pound understood
them, are virtually identical.  I always find it curious that POUND saw
Fascism and Confucianism as synonymous, and that critics of Confucianism in
China see them as synonymous, while many Pound scholars do not.  I think the
discrepancy lies in a lack of historical knowledge about Confucius and
Confucianism in the West.


>Therefore, the only =
>"conclusion" we may thus draw is that Pound, like all of us, had his own =
>views as regards what was wrong with the world and how to set right a =
>time out of joint.

True.  But Pound was the only major American literary figure (excepting
perhaps Lewis) who fully endorsed fascism.  While many  European
intellectuals were fleeing fascism (or supporting the underground, like
Sartre and Camus), Pound went to tremendous lengths to give his moral and
intellectual energy to propagating the fascist ideology.  No other American
or English literary figure went to the full level of commitment that Pound
did.  Even Martin Heidegger, who lived and worked in Germany under the
Nazis, and who endorsed Nazism in several speeches, did so in a rather
lukewarm way.

(continued in next post)



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