Dear Charles, You are interested in a wide variety of topics as am I. This discussion has touched on politics, religion, forms of ecclestiastical hierarchy, sociology, economics, history, Chinese philosophy, and many other subjects. What ever other topics interest you would probably interest me. You seemed to want to drop the conversation on henotheism. Why? >On democracy again Ghandi; "Oh yes, that would be a very good idea." I did want to comment on that one before, but missed the opportunity. The actual quote attributed to Gandhi, as I recall it, was something like this: ---------- Reporter: Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion of Western civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a very good idea. ------------ The implications of such a statement are quite different. Gandhi may be the greatest political figure, activist, philosopher, and sage of the twentieth century. Pound's only reference to Gandhi in the Cantos appears at 38/188: And Mr. Gandhi thought: If we don't buy any cotton And at the same time don't buy any guns ....... Sounds a bit like an endorsement. Doesn't it? He doesn't mind Gandhi boycotting British textiles. (Fine by me). He doesn't think the rebels against British rule should buy guns because (as Terrell says) the money is better spent on peace and on food. However, might we not doubt that Pound cares about peace by this point? Terrell gets it wrong this time, I believe. For on the very next page of this canto we find: And Schossman suggested that I stay there in Vienna As stool pidgeon against the Anschluss . . . Pound supported the Anschluss, and after the annexation of Austria, the annexation and conquest of the whole of Western Europe. Pound did not seem to think that Hitler (or Mussolini) should follow Gandhi's example: spend less money on guns and more on peace. How are we to reconcile these supposedly conflicting attitudes? >I wonder when you will come around to your ultimate question: "Are you now >or have you ever been an admirer of Ezra Pound?" It is difficult for me to "admire" an unrepentant fascist. I am simply being honest. There may be a great deal to admire in the Drafts and Fragments, viewed a certain way. Pound total ouvre is obviously interesting, and worthy of study in the sense in which Carroll Cox explained. >I invite you or any other member of this list to answer this question under >oath to tell the truth so help your democracy. I would not mind taking an oath, except that I am rather sympathetic to the Quaker view that oaths are not necessary if one is willing to tell the truth. Taking an oath implies that when one is not under oath, one is not telling the truth. >And let's not take the "moc" out of democracy and above all not the humor. Fair enough. As long as we don't take the "dic" out of "dictatorship" (something which Pound wants to do, which is surprising in light of his "phallocentrism") >Todays quote is from Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn". >"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big >enough majority in any town?" That's a nice quote, especially if we read it in light of some of Twain's other comments on Western "Christendom". These remarks are from: "A Salutation Speech from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth taken down in shorthand by Mark Twain I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass." Mark Twain New York, Dec. 31, 1900. ------- We get a more serious view of Twain's opinions on US imperialism, national sovereignty, of the subjected nations, and the importance of LIBERTY, in the following quote. ------- Doubt -- doubt that we did right by the Filipinos -- is rising steadily higher and higher in the nation's breast; conviction will follow doubt. The nation will speak; its will is law; there is no other sovereign on this soil; and in that day we shall right such unfairnesses as we have done. We shall let go our obsequious hold on the rear-skirts of the sceptred land-thieves of Europe, and be what we were before, a real World Power, and the chiefest of them all, by right of the only clean hands in Christendom, the only hands guiltless of the sordid plunder of any helpless people's stolen liberties, -------- Look at the larger picture, which we can piece together by examining these three quotes, and what do we get? In Twain I see a man extremely aware of the shortcomings of American democracy, and of the evils of imperialism, who is also committed to such concepts as the general will and human liberty (positive concepts of which Pound appears to have little or no conception, committed as he is to the will of the dictator, and the extension of empire). What are we to believe in? This is the only question I am posing. Some people want to talk about where the comma is in some obscure passage. Or ask whether such and such a reference refers to a certain obscure historical event. Such questions are not without interest, but if they are divorced completely from questions of value, of truth, of ethical or political committment, then what use are they? I get the sense that some people are simply afraid of facing the deeper social and moral issues; that some are upset simply because they dislike the implications of certain questions. Perhaps I am wrong. I do not claim that my answers are correct. But at least they are attempts at answers. If some people want to bury their heads in the sand, and just accept the superficial and entertaining aspects of literary study, then again I ask, what is the point? The point of any study of literature and philosophy must, in my view, be the aquisition of knowledge and wisdom regarding the eternal virtues: justice, ethical action, committment to egalitarian values, a love of truth, and the pursuit of God, however one attempts to comprehend that absolute first source of value. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com