Mr. Moyer and Jon (and hopefully others), Fakery: “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.” Emerson, from “Self-Reliance.” I do have serious questions about Pound that I ask in the final two long paragraphs, if you want to skip ahead. I need your help. Thank you. Which dishonest personae shall I choose today? Do any of you have a request? I’m not dishonest Mr. Moyer, any more than a fiction writer, or even Pound was, I can tell you that. Integrity, honesty, sincerity, authenticity, especially about intellectual and artistic issues is what I got, and all I got, besides my kids. It’s enough and more than what Jon says his colleagues have, what’d he say, “fakery?” I call it imitation. Most people are mere imitators, some of us aren’t always imitators, and when we are not imitators we are considered elitist, because we abhor, despise fakery and imitation. I’m not saying we despise them as people, but the product of their work. Today, I am an elitist. Emerson’s relationship to economics, politics, and literature are much clearer than Pound’s, as least for me. Although I know Pound is labeled a fascist, I’m not at all certain that his writings reflect that to be true; is he labeled one merely by his affiliations? Or his he labeled a fascist because he really was one? With Emerson, his ideas lead to the oligarchic plutocracy (that you mentioned), ruthless capitalism, and the distinguishable postmodernist aesthetic and literature, as well as its lineage (Whitman to Hummer and Berstein.) I’m not certain that we had to go through modernism or even high modernism to get to where we are--maybe Modernism was a transitional period, I’m not certain yet. In comparison, if we look at Pound as an Emersonian-like figure (by this I mean his influence), I wonder where Pound’s writing leads him/us? I’m not all that familiar with Pound’s prose and letters, but I am familiar with much of his poetry, although I can’t proclaim I understand it; and I probably don’t considering the fact that I don’t now his prose or his letters. Certainly, his work doesn’t bring us to the democratic ideal that you, me, Gandhi, Mr. White, want. We say, “hear, hear” or “here, here” with one voice. Maybe, you and your entourage can help me? Below is the quick low down on Emerson from my point of view. I know I’m not the first to express it, maybe I am; and really, I’m not one to make huge citations either, so forgive me if I dismiss any requirement that I pay my dues to the idea of intellectual property; what bull. To address Jon for a moment, again: yes, there are fakes all around you, it’s imitation, nothing more. There’s very little creativity within the academy, just “fakery” as you suggest. I won’t bore you all with citations; it takes to much energy, and I can no longer tell you what sometimes are my own ideas and the ideas of others. I’ll give credit if I know, but I’m not going to peruse my books; I’ve read a lot and there are too books many that surround me. I long ago came to realize that my thoughts and ideas are not my own, if you know what I mean. I am not a sponsor of intellectual capital or its commodification. Dumb ass Derrida wasn’t so stupid I must tell you (yes there’s allusion, but do you know what it is and its great complexity—doubt it, but maybe?) Jon, I don’t throw Derrida’s name around just to be one of the academic types that you talk about; I can assure you I am not one of them, I am an outsider; outsider to this group, too—I intend to remain so, even if it means I never become a part of this Poundian Academy or the wonderful Academy that you, Jon cant about. If Derrida said anything, he said that language is connected in a complex web that has a deep, deep history. When it becomes apparent that I start thinking like any of you, that’s my cue to leave, but that’s not yet. Today, I am an elitist. I’ve heard Jon’s story before; it’s an old one going back as far as the sophists, probably back to the cave days, when somebody got pissed that they were given credit for their first utterance, “Ugh!” I must say, though, the academy is less creative than ever—they have sex academic style, missionary style; or as the postmodernist would—snoop-doggy dog style, like girls gone wild on spring break. There are people, however, within the Academic world, who aren’t a part of “Bird Hall,” and tenure doesn’t come their way very easy, but they retain their integrity and my respect, in lieu of a pension and job security. “Bird Hall” isn’t for me—what do they say, you know the cliché?...don’t shit on your own kind, not if you got to eat, right Jon? I don’t care about a pension or job security; but integrity, yes, I do care about it as Pound did; it’s all I got, because I don’t have a dime to my name and the journals won’t publish my work, unless they mistakenly don’t “get it.” Sometimes I do slip my shit past them. Remember: I’m the asshole on this end remember; but I’m very self-aware to that fact that I am an asshole, or a jerk as Mr. Moyer amended for the benefit of others. Mr. Moyer, I say this with affection: you too are an asshole, but you know that, too. I tell you nothing you don’t already know. So? All that I have learned, including about Pound, has come through my own initiative, by seeking the information, people’s interpretation of the information, but most of it in the dull light of my study, which isn’t even a study. I don’t like that world Jon speaks about; I despise it, although I pick and choose what I do within his world, because I can. I’ll go teach at some community college or shine shoes instead if I have to. As I said: today I am an elitist. Anyway, back to Pound and Emerson. Government by the wealthy few is a huge problem as I see it; as you see it; so even though we initially had some problems with my initial provocations (the good kind) we do seem to agree on this matter, and I suppose many more. As you and others may recall Emerson wrote an essay, "Wealth." It seems that Emerson advocated an economic system that harbors endemic poverty, although he wants to ameliorate its worst effects, but on the other hand, he regrets the administration of such amelioration. State sponsored socialism isn't his answer, although he was not altogether adverse to cooperative forms of socialism. In "Wealth" he says: "The socialism of our day has done good service in setting men on thinking how certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be enjoyed by all." Strangely enough though, he thought individuality, his sacred self-reliant individualism, would be sacrificed. I think it can be argued that just the opposite is true, because with the larger perspective, a universalization of other, under more "egalitarian" perspective, allows for the expression of individuality to a wider degree; whereas his type of individualism can only be expressed by those who control resources, primarily property and money. The right of property is thus the right to unequal amounts of it. By extension, the right of say, individuality, whether we say either the expression or actualization of it, is the right to unequal amounts of it. As you know, Pounds expression of his own individuality was met by government interference, not just moral approbation. Moral approbation in a system of cooperative socialization may be morally justified, whereas the right to unequal amounts of property and "individuality", has a dubious moral basis. Emerson would say that the systemic inequalities is not systemic, but an unfortunate accident. He says: "this accident, depending primarily on the skill and virtues of the parties, of which there is every degree, and secondarily on patrimony, falls unequally, and its rights of course are unequal( in "Wealth").” Accident and right are interchangeable terms then. I suppose what he means by accident, because he never really says, must be luck, or maybe even fate. In "Politics,"" Emerson claims that people who control property should have greater political power--his idea of equity, although he does express some concern that the rich will interfere with the poor, and keep them poor. Fucked up, right? Where is the opportunity for others to act self-reliantly in a system that both politically and economically prevents the masses from acting self-reliantly? The pursuit of wealth; the pursuit of property is the active manifestation of Emersonian self-reliance. I do recognize that Emerson saw this as a physical manifestation of self-reliance, and that it can be argued that he advocated other forms of self-reliance, specifically, intellectual self-reliance, which as we know, the elites, mainly, the economic (and thus the political) elites, inevitably control educational resources as well. In his essay "Culture" though, he views the pursuit of wealth (remember we inevitably equate this with social and political power), as self-injurious, a form of selfishness, egotism, self-absorbed egotism. This seems to contradict his advocacy of the pursuit of wealth, as egotism, which is essential to his form of individualism; he says that his age (and ours) is defined by property ownership, political importance, and the "steady progress of the democratic element." But as you rightly point out, and Emerson also argued and advocated for, was actually oligarchic plutocracy, not Democracy. In "Society and Solitude" he equates the love of wealth to the love of the beautiful: "And indeed the love of wealth seems to grow chiefly out of the root of the love of the Beautiful. The desire of gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat and wool and house-hold-stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit ("Domestic Life".) I can only tell you that now this makes me say: WOW, that's a mighty big claim, closely tied to aesthetics, of course. I've said enough about this for now, except maybe, that we find the philosophical justification in Locke. There is more, but I need to stop here for now. Okay, my question, Mr. Moyer, Jon, and group is: so what was Pound’s political view in a nut shell. Please try to write in your own words; don’t merely imitate, but if you must quote Pound, which might be helpful, please also tell me what you think the quote means, in language I, the asshole, can understand. Today, I am an elitist. Jim Stoner __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com