(continued from last post) This explanation is notable for its paradoxical attitude toward "being ruled" and "being exploited," an attitude not unlike Frobenius'. Pound believes that certain people do not "deserve freedom;" they need to be cow-herded. Yet he also exclaims against exploitation, on the basis of a Confucian Ch'ing Ming (precise use of words), without ever explaining how such a doctrine can end exploitation. How can the herd escape the mistreatment of the herder (read, fascist authority), if the latter has the absolute power to define both the use of words and the shape of social structures? Frobenius, like Pound, inveighed against exploitation, especially the colonial exploitation of the Africans. In Der Ursprung der afrikanischen [The Origin of African Cultures], he wrote, What . . . we, conceited Europeans call world history, has significance only for ourselves and the inha- bitants of the small European peninsula, because it is the world history of our own growth. . . for the time being we are the tyrants of the earth, who subjugate and rule the other peoples and races, and make it seem as if the development of the culture of the future could be founded on nothing else but our soil and ourselves." (Jahn, 17). He condemned what he saw to be a merciless colonial policy. With our iron fist we smash all other peoples. We sow our colonies on the corpses of putrefying races and burn down the homes of foreign develop- ments in order to erect our palaces on the smoking ruins. . . The European ocean of fire, which extends across the Earth, may have destroyed within a few decades, the largest part of living and dead "world history." (Jahn, 17). Yet this virulent denunciation of European colonial policy in general was contradicted by an extreme enthusiasm for German imperialism. After meeting with "Emperor Wilhelm," *** The prospect of imperial sponsorship for [Frobenius'] future journeys made him look for a spectacular contribution to the glory of the German flag. He had his collaborators estimate the cost of a zeppelin station near Lake Chad, and. . . he proposed in all seriousness, his bold project to the German parliament with the following naive and childlike argument: "With admirable élan the Frenchman has pushed forward with his telegraph from the Senegal to the Chari. He built railways. He built airports. The Englishman has established two routes from the coast to the heart of British Nigeria. . . There is nothing the German can put beside this." Then Frobenius puts forward a three-year plan. A road in Northern Cameroun should be enlarged; every ten kilometers a landing place for airships should be constructed beside it. Three zeppelin hangars and two natural gas stations should be built. Then the airships were to be transported by sea from Germany to Africa. . . Frobenius' collaborators estimated the costs at 37 million gold marks. And what was the purpose of all this? Frobenius rejected consi- derations of utility such as the British or French might have envisaged. "Even more than in Europe, the ruler of Africa is judged by Africans in terms of his achievements," Frobenius explained to the delegates. "He who has the highest prestige will, according to an ancient African principle, have the higher income" (Jahn, 12). In asking the delegates to make their decision based on a policy that would pursue "the higher income," Frobenius was fostering the most reckless sort of imperialist policy, and doing nothing to prevent what he supposedly decried: the destruction "within a few decades of the largest part of living and dead 'world history.' " This paradoxical attitude may have rubbed off on Pound, who simultaneously sought to transmit Chinese culture from East to West, while encouraging the destruction of contemporary Chinese society by Japanese military action; and who also condemned British imperialism in Nigeria, while supporting the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia. How much of Pound's outlook, in this respect, was derived from Frobenius is difficult to say. At the very least, Pound's belief in Empire and the racial superiority of colonizer over the colonized was very similar to Frobenius' view. The most significant difference was in Pound's interest in China as the paradigmatic Empire-builder, or, more specifically, in China as a model for the modern Italian Empire. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com