Observing the debate between Tim Romano and Carroll Cox has been very instructive. I find myself in strong agreement with Tim Romano’s sympathetic account of Ezra Pound’s “Eternal states of Mind.” On the issue of the social, political, and economic implications of Pound’s work, I find myself in agreement with Carroll Cox, who said: >Whoa. You can't say leave metaphysics out of it -- and then proceed >to use the key concept that distinguishes metaphysical thinking from >historical thinking, "eternal states" (of anything). It may be (you are >fairly convincing on this) that Pound *thought* the states of mind (or >social relations) he was making manifest in his poems were eternal >states . . . . I think there is an important distinction between the main observation and the parenthetic observation about “social relations”. 1) Pound thought that entry into “eternal states of mind” was possible. I agree with Pound here. 2) Pound also thought that certain ancient social paradigms (the Confucian model of political organization, for instance) were eternal and universally applicable for the good of man. I strongly DIS-agree with Pound on this. Most marxian thinkers would think that Pound was wrong on both counts, arguing that all forms of religious consciousness are forms of false consciousness. However I have never seen a convincing explication of Marx’s theory on this point, since Marx makes no distinction in his theory (“religion is the opiate of the masses”) to distinguish between the exploitive nature of organized religion, and the dynamic activism of religious revolutionaries, like Levellers, for instance. The modern “Liberation Theologians” make a meaningful distinction in this area. >and one of the things certainly the Cantos do repeatedly is >dramatize what it is *like* to project historical experience into eternity. Pound does this over and over, in a very reactionary fashion. But when his social and political views are abstracted or divorced from his purely religious experience, we get an inkling of what may legitimately called an “eternal state of mind”. I am not saying Pound does this perfectly, or as well some other mystic poets (like Traherne or Blake), but does make an attempt. >But "eternal states of mind" as an ontological or historical actuality >simply don't exist. > This is debateable, isn’t it? Poets, mystics, philosophers, “saints,” theologians, and many others (including some lumberjacks and janitors) have spoken of and recorded accounts of the “eternal state of mind”. Many Hindu and Buddhist mystics go so far as to say that all mental experience is eternal, and that the perception of reality itself as “non-eternal” is merely a pervasive delusion. Whether “eternal states” exist---as a “historical reality” or an “ontological actuality” --- will remain an open question for most people. Ontology itself was born in the West out of the strivings of Parmenides and Zeno to prove that all perception of movement and plurality by the senses was illusory, and to prove that if a person apprehended Being as a TOTALITY, or as ONE, through the use of reason (logos, in the broades sense), then all sense of non-eternity would cease. Of course Parmenides and Zeno did not conceive of Reason (Logos) as mere rationation as most of us do now. The history of literature and philosophy reveals many records which show the possibility of the mind’s encountering an “eternal state”. One the best records is that of Lao Tze, the archivist-historian who said (in the Tao te ching) The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao The Name that can be named is not the eternal name The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth The Named is the Mother of all things . . . . I may well ask how it can be asserted that “eternal states of mind” do not exist? Can we conceive of them, or imagine them? I side with William Blake when he tells us: “Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.” Or perhaps more famously, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, then everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” I would agree then with the observation that >>. . .when the > > poet says "I stood still and was a tree amid the wood" he is having an > > unmediated metamorphic EXPERIENCE of the same order as that undergone by > > Yeats, who asks: "How can we tell the dancer from the dance?" > Carroll Cox goes on to ask, >(On the side, I personally began to have trouble in various contexts when >the >either "mediated" or "unmediated" appears in a discourse. I'm never sure >what >they mean.) How can we tell the agent from the act? In a genuinely unmediated experience, the distinction between the agent and the act breaks down. This experience is described by Lao Tze as follows: We look at it and we do not see it; It’s name is the Invisible. We listen to it and we do not hear it; Its name is the Inaudible. We touch it and we do not find it; Its name is the Formless. These three cannot be futher inquired into And hence merge into ONE. (Tao te ching, ch. 14) (continued in next post) ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com