Two annotations to the previous.
 
It's inaccurate to call Hamilton's book "excellant on
the subjectof the formation of It. fascism" since that
ain't its subject. The subject is what i stated above.
Also you should note the publication date: 1971.
 
The historiography of fascism has acquired new
directions in the intervening three decades. For a
recent view, see Emilio Gentile (one of the most
esteemed Italian historians of Italian culture under
Fascism), <The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist
Italy>, 1996.
 
--- Everett Lee Lady <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >Date:  Sat, 20 Nov 1999 07:35:00 -1000
> >From:  David Centrone <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject:      Re: Integer vitae scelerisque purum
> >
> >An excellant book on the subject of the formation
> of Italian fascism is
> >Alastair Hamilton's:. _The Appeal of Fascism_.
> After reading it, I'm not so
> >sure that I would characterize it as the "working
> class. . . at war with the
> >bourgeoisie"; many of the most pronounced
> supporters (against the violence
> >of the communist, syndicalist, maximalists) were
> the people who had actually
> >made money during the war (I).  This group included
> Italian Jewish people as
> >well.
>
> Thanks for the reference.  I, for one, will
> certainly be interested in
> looking at this.
>
> But since our interest in this list is with Pound,
> and with what we
> really mean when we say, "Pound was a Fascist," and
> with the question of
> whether Pound's poetry and literary criticism can be
> seen as a
> justification for Fascism in the same way that
> Nietzsche and Heidegger's
> writings can be read as a justification for
> Naziism....   Since this is
> our concern, the relevant question is:  What was
> *Pound's* understanding
> of Fascism?
>
> And strangely enough, considering how quick we are
> to label Pound a
> Fascist, it seems rather difficult to find much of
> an answer to this in
> Pound's writings.  If one reads JEFFERSON AND/OR
> MUSSOLINI, one sees that
> he admired Mussolini and admired the spirit of Italy
> under Mussolini.
> He doesn't, however, say anything about the
> repressive aspects of that
> Mussolini's government except where he denies that
> some of them exist.
>
> From the conversations I heard at St. Elizabeth's, I
> remember only that
> he liked the idea of the Corporate State, i.e. that
> members of the
> legislature would represent the various business and
> labor interests
> instead of representing geographical regions.  (To
> some extent, our own
> government functions according to this same
> structure, inasmuch as a lot
> of the real legislative debate is carried on by
> lobbyists more than by
> the actual Senators and Congressmen, who could
> probably not function
> without the information supplied by lobbyists.)
>
> Pound was typical of many people in that his
> feelings about the
> political figures he liked were based more on their
> words than their
> actual policies.  He liked the fact that Mussolini
> (and also Hitler)
> denounced munitions manufacturers, bankers, and
> financiers in their
> speeches.  He didn't seem to have much understanding
> of the fact that
> these speeches were designed merely to appeal to
> people like himself
> (many many people at that time shared Pound's
> sentiments) and were not
> a reflection of actual policy.
>
> I will be very interested in seeing what's in
> Alastair Hamilton's book,
> but I suspect that the level of discussion there is
> far more
> sophisticated than Pound's own understanding of
> Fascism.
>
> -- Lee Lady <Http://www2.Hawaii.Edu/~lady>
>
 
 
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