yes, sorry, it was from Adams to Jefferson.... it's not clear that
"authoritarian" is the keyword, at least not for me.  Pound did believe that
someone who possessed the qualities that he enumerates throughout the Cantos
was the ideal leader because such a person would instill these qualities into
the civic body.  I don't think he was much concerned with how someone with
these virtues and capacities for influence came to power.

as for the bad rap on the Sophists, I have another view, a rather pragmatic
one.  I may be wrong about this but I think that sophism arose during a long
period of economic stagnation in Greece, where one of the few ways to gain
wealth was to win a lawsuit.  in that respect, sophism is alive and well in
our society.


joe brennan...

In a message dated 06/01/2000 6:50:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<
 Pound, I assume, was a principled supporter of authoritarian rule --
 and he states the core principle of *all* such theories here, the equation
 of a single despot or oligarchy with "a majority of a popular assembly."
 That is what Madison and Hamilton thought as well. And incidentally
 the speaker here is Adams, not Jefferson. (It is dated Quincey Nov.
 13, 1815.) You can see the first western statement of this theory
 (and the theory has not changed in essentials since then) in Book 8
 of the *Republic*, the description of the successive degenerations
 of the ideal state into timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and despotism.
 The assumption (which the Sophists, the first theorists of democracy,
 spend their lives denouncing) was that rule was a special art or craft
 or skill. The sophists held that they could teach wisdom (i.e., the
 ability to participate in public life) -- and thereby equip the *demos*
 to rule. The 2500 year bad reputation of the sophists has been one
 continuous attack on democracy.

 Carrol
  >>