the issue is not whether Pound was democratic, but that he didn't despise
governments because they were democratic.  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.  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.  there's merit in much of what he had to say about
politics, as well as his economic positions.  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.

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.  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.  To say that Mussolini is central to the Cantos, and thus to
Pound, makes one wonder how Mussolini & Confucius can simultaneously occupy
the same place, unless he's implying that there's no difference between the
two.  I don't get the impression that anyone is trying to sanitize Pound's
politics, and I find the suggestion offensive.

joe brennan

In a message dated 06/02/2000 3:18:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< This list has seen a number of threads on Pound's politics, but I have to
say that
 I've been more than a little surprised by some of the recent claims. Yes,
Pound
 praised Thomas Jefferson and said he believed in the Constitution. In itself
that
 means nothing: the ACLU, Pat Buchanan, the students at Tiananmen Square and
 Timothy McVeigh have all done the same. Lester Bangs once said all speed
freaks
 are liars, because anyone who talks that much can't tell the truth all the
time. A
 similar situation obtains in Pound's work: he wrote so much that through
selective
 quotation one could construct any number of political positions for him.

 It seems absolutely clear to me that (as En Lin Wei as suggested) the key to
 Pound's political beliefs is his Confucianism, and that this Confucianism is
 deeply skeptical of representative democracy and deeply sympathetic to
powerful
 and even totalitarian individuals and elites. That's why Pound could
 simultaneously praise Malatesta, Jefferson, Bronson Cutting, Lenin, Huey Long
 (whose economic views were wildly at odd with Pound's), Mussolini and
Coughlin. As
 Leon Surette has stated, Pound was not an ideologue and with the exception of
 economics and a handful of idiosyncratic interests, he didn't really care
about
 the specifics of government. Power and "insight" were enough. Even results
 (sometimes) don't matter that much: Pound admits Malatesta's tempio is a
jumble
 and a junkshop, but praises it because it "registers a concept." Likewise, he
 admits that Mussolini is full of contradictions, then insists those are
irrelevant
 if one treats him as an "artifex." (Talk about transference.)

 Contrary to what a number of people have claimed, this is not somehow
extraneous
 to the Cantos; it is absolutely central to it. Additionally, I say that
neither
 because I'm an academic looking to further my career by trampling on Pound,
nor
 because I'm indifferent to the poetry. I think Pound is perhaps the most
 extraordinary poet of the 20th century. That doesn't mean I'm going to
sanitize
 his politics.
  >>