In a message dated 06/26/2000 3:17:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: << Filial piety is very inclusive: it does not include Family squabbles over land money, etcetera (98/691). >> so much of human suffering stems precisely from such family squabbles -- which, when practiced on a large scale, frequently obscure the fact that they are "family" in nature -- think about this. in fact, if you think about family squabbles over money, every major conflict of the past century -- and certainly longer than this -- is over money and real estate. perhaps if you read a little more depth into Pound's sentiment here, you'd see it, but since it would conflict with your notion that Pound was interested in enveloping most of us in a cultural straitjacket, you choose the most malevolent option. << Now I ask participants on this list to interpret Pound's lines, and to interpret Pound's words regarding the Nazis? Should one interpret the line about filial piety and family squabbles apart from their larger social implications? Every citizen of China, since 1911, has known that one of the functions of the Confucian exhortation to filial piety has been to consolidate hierarchy. (Most educated Chinese have known this since the beginning of the Han dynasty). I am not attributing to Pound anything he has not said. How else can the phrase "the Nazis have wiped out bad manners," be interpreted? >> Pound said lots of stupid things like the quote about "bad manners" but I don't think it's fair to reduce everything he said to such a remark, or remarks like it. everyone that I know who's interested in Pound concedes his cranky stupidity. and we can go on like this, some of us insisting that there are values to Pound's poetry which exceed the crassness and viciousness of his political rant, and some of us insisting that everything he said and did in the Cantos has their origins in such a rant. I'm in the first camp, you're in the second. it makes me wonder why you study such a person, why you waste your time on it. it must be to straighten the rest of us out about Pound, since we're apparently unable to share in the projective nature of your criticism. it's true, if you want to reduce Pound to a dog, you can do it, he certainly gave enough opportunity to do so. of course, to do so one must drop all pretense of evenhandedness, all pretense of objectivity. and at this level, it becomes a mantra -- Pound is a fascist, Pound is anti-Semitic, Pound is a nazi, a Hitler-lover, a Confucian stooge. so if there are challenges to be issued, then I challenge anyone to read over your late verbosity on this list and come to any other conclusion about the nature and tenor of your remarks, and that they have the characteristics I've described. << I am not very fond of "-isms", >> wei -- now really..... <<but it was Pound, who when asked to leave Italy, said, "BUT I BELIEVE IN FASCISM." Nevertheless, I am open to new information and new perspectives, which I invite you to provide.>> as has been pointed out, a lot of people who should have known better believed in FASCISM. and I have to say, you're the least open individual that I've personally encountered when it comes to Pound. << So tell me. Where DO the "creative dimensions" of Pound's work lead? What IDEAS and BELIEFS will a study of the "creative dimension" yield? You will enlighten many of us on this list if you can answer this type of question. I look forward to your reply. >> to what end? to provide you with yet more opportunities to repeat the same tired bromides you keep heaving at us? and I think "many of us" is an arrogant assumption on your part. enlightenment, particularly as it regards Pound, is very painful, as has been pointed out to you, and I don't think you have it in you to suffer through it. jb...