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Stuck with Pound

kirkcenter.org

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Re: Stuck with Pound

#11

Post by pjc50 »

sigh I feel this comments section is just going to reiterate the culture war rather than address the article, the book it's reviewing, the Chinese poems "translated", other works of Pound, or Pound's actual relationship to Fascism.

A refresher on the latter: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/coming-to-terms-wi...

Notable in there is the ancestor of Qanon, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a notorious racial libel whose circulation was a contributing factor to the Holocaust.

Re: Stuck with Pound

#12

Post by pasabagi »

dri_ft wrote: post #10
fmajid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were direct connections between Futurism (the Italian artistic movement) and Fascism, and Futurism influenced Vorticism. Cancelling Pound would be no great loss for humanity.

> There were direct connections between Futurism (the Italian artistic movement) and Fascism, and Futurism influenced Vorticism. This is really rather shoddy guilt-by-association - and second degree association at that. He's a valuable critic and I am certainly grateful to him for i) turning me onto a number of European poets from times and tongues I would not otherwise have turned my attention to, and ii) for sharpe…

> This is really rather shoddy guilt-by-association - and second degree association at that.

Really? I was always told that the Futurists tried to position themselves as the official artists of Fascism (but they were sadly not conservative enough).

Re: Stuck with Pound

#13

Post by pjc50 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Sturgeon's law applies to people as well as between people. That's why we invented editors. and manners. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24081265 Edit: skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound it seems amazing that one can get from supporting social credit ("to disperse economic and political power to individuals") to capital-F Fascism and "the English were a slave race governed since Waterloo by the Ro…

> Vorticism to Fascism may have been a simpler route?

You're going to have to explain that one?

The racial hatred, especially anti-semitism, appears to have been the really characteristic (and dangerous) trait of European mid-20th century Fascism. It's not immediately obvious how that links to abstract art.

High Modernism on the other hand has always had a sort of small-t totalitarianism in it; the sweeping away of the old and its replacement with standardised, mechanised ways of living that erase individuality. Le Corbusier's unrealised plan to sweep away Haussmann's Paris and replace it with tower blocks reminds me of Speer's plan to do the same with Berlin, although Speer was aiming for kitch neoclassical rather than modern - can't have fascism without fasces on every building.

(The other analysis I'm fond of is fascism as the colonialism of the interior; Hitler's annexation of slavic states was because all the other convenient nonwhite states were already occupied by British, French or ex-Spanish colonies. Likewise Japan's expansion into Dutch and American colonies in search of oil and rubber.)

Re: Stuck with Pound

#14

Post by dri_ft »

pasabagi wrote: post #12
dri_ft wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were direct connections between Futurism (the Italian artistic movement) and Fascism, and Futurism influenced Vorticism. This is really rather shoddy guilt-by-association - and second degree association at that. He's a valuable critic and I am certainly grateful to him for i) turning me onto a number of European poets from times and tongues I would not otherwise have turned my attention to, and ii) for sharpe…

> This is really rather shoddy guilt-by-association - and second degree association at that. Really? I was always told that the Futurists tried to position themselves as the official artists of Fascism (but they were sadly not conservative enough).

I believe that's true so far as it goes. I'm more concerned about the hop from futurism to vorticism (and thence to Pound's politics).

I don't doubt that there are good reasons to think Ezra Pound a fascist, but I don't think his involvement with vorticism is one of them.

Re: Stuck with Pound

#15

Post by gadders »

toyg wrote: post #6
golergka wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from socialism to fascism never was a long walk.

You're being downvoted but this is correct. Mussolini, arguably the inventor of modern fascism, began his political life as a socialist; to his last days, he maintained a belief in the role of the State to direct development and economic output. In many ways, the economic policies of Fascism (and Nazism later) might well be described as "socialist policies run by - and for - oligarchic capitalists".

Britain's own failed Mussolini, Oswald Mosley was a Labour MP before he became a fascist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley#Crossing_the_flo...

Re: Stuck with Pound

#16

Post by pjc50 »

dri_ft wrote: post #14
pasabagi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is really rather shoddy guilt-by-association - and second degree association at that. Really? I was always told that the Futurists tried to position themselves as the official artists of Fascism (but they were sadly not conservative enough).

I believe that's true so far as it goes. I'm more concerned about the hop from futurism to vorticism (and thence to Pound's politics). I don't doubt that there are good reasons to think Ezra Pound a fascist, but I don't think his involvement with vorticism is one of them.

> I don't doubt that there are good reasons to think Ezra Pound a fascist

The radio broadcasts for Mussolini were a bit of a giveaway.

Re: Stuck with Pound

#17

Post by aebtebeten »

pjc50 wrote: post #13
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Sturgeon's law applies to people as well as between people. That's why we invented editors. and manners. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24081265 Edit: skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound it seems amazing that one can get from supporting social credit ("to disperse economic and political power to individuals") to capital-F Fascism and "the English were a slave race governed since Waterloo by the Ro…

> Vorticism to Fascism may have been a simpler route? You're going to have to explain that one? The racial hatred, especially anti-semitism, appears to have been the really characteristic (and dangerous) trait of European mid-20th century Fascism. It's not immediately obvious how that links to abstract art. High Modernism on the other hand has always had a sort of small-t totalitarianism in it; the sweeping away of t…

Being innocent of vorticism, I had been going on the description provided at hazard by Uncle Google:

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...

"it attacked the sentimentality of 19th‐cent. art and celebrated violence, energy, and the machine."

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/v/vorticism/blast-radi...

Also gives a bit of the flavour that "history is more or less bunk" and Tomorrow Belongs to Me.[1]

Weil notes that although german fascists and communists had divergent political ends (for in the end they were planning to be rid of each other) they both agreed the first step to their (respective) Project Community of Tomorrow involved disempowering german social democrats.

[1] to be fair, the young are generally correct that the future belongs to them, and I doubt any gradualist artistic manifesto would go over very well (although it might make an excellent concept piece!)

    What do we want?

        Incremental adaptation!

    When do we want it?

        In due course!
(note to self: read https://library.brown.edu/pdfs/1143209523824858.pdf and ponder: if the vorticists had had HTML, would they have bought the domain www.blastorble.ss and offered a javascript-driven single-page interactive manifesto?)

Re: Stuck with Pound

#18

Post by aebtebeten »

toyg wrote: post #6
golergka wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going from socialism to fascism never was a long walk.

You're being downvoted but this is correct. Mussolini, arguably the inventor of modern fascism, began his political life as a socialist; to his last days, he maintained a belief in the role of the State to direct development and economic output. In many ways, the economic policies of Fascism (and Nazism later) might well be described as "socialist policies run by - and for - oligarchic capitalists".

Weil uses "Hitlerite" to describe pre-war germany, having reserved Fascism for italy. HN consensus seems to be that the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives was when the oligarchic capitalist N wing triumphed over the S wing of the NSDAP.

It looks like postwar Nazis didn't have much to consistently complain about regarding the retroactivity of Nuremberg trials:

> "Concerned with presenting the massacre as legally sanctioned, Hitler had the cabinet approve a measure on July 3 that declared, "The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defence by the State."[55] Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner, a conservative who had been Bavarian Justice Minister in the years of the Weimar Republic, demonstrated his loyalty to the new regime by drafting the statute, which added a legal veneer to the purge.[k] Signed into law by Hitler, Gürtner, and Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick, the "Law Regarding Measures of State Self-Defence" retroactively legalized the murders committed during the purge.[56] Germany's legal establishment further capitulated to the regime when the country's leading legal scholar, Carl Schmitt, wrote an article defending Hitler's July 13 speech. It was named "The Führer Upholds the Law."[57][58]"

Re: Stuck with Pound

#19

Post by [deleted] »

golergka wrote: post #4
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Sturgeon's law applies to people as well as between people. That's why we invented editors. and manners. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24081265 Edit: skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound it seems amazing that one can get from supporting social credit ("to disperse economic and political power to individuals") to capital-F Fascism and "the English were a slave race governed since Waterloo by the Ro…

Going from socialism to fascism never was a long walk.

[deleted]

Re: Stuck with Pound

#20

Post by Aengeuad »

gadders wrote: post #15
toyg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted but this is correct. Mussolini, arguably the inventor of modern fascism, began his political life as a socialist; to his last days, he maintained a belief in the role of the State to direct development and economic output. In many ways, the economic policies of Fascism (and Nazism later) might well be described as "socialist policies run by - and for - oligarchic capitalists".

Britain's own failed Mussolini, Oswald Mosley was a Labour MP before he became a fascist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley#Crossing_the_flo...

For those that aren't going to click the link: he was a Conservative initially before becoming an independent and he had radical policies to reduce unemployment that weren't popular in the then laissez-faire Labour party (or Conservatives really) such as tariffs to protect British industries from 'international finance', state nationalisation of main industries, and plans for a corporate state by merging businesses, workers, and the government into one. He was also against free trade being noted as saying he was trying to challenge the '50-year-old system of free trade which exposes industry in the home market to the chaos of world conditions, such as price fluctuation, dumping, and the competition of sweated labour'.

After the split from Labour and failing to see success in his own New Party he went on a study tour of Italy and it's here you see the sharp turn towards the right wing and the formation of the BUP which was obviously authoritarian corporate fascism, strongly anti-Communist, and frequently clashed with Jewish groups.

As dragonwriter notes in his posts in this thread, corporatism is something that's sometimes shared among these ideologies but the gulf between those ideologies can still be pretty large, authoritarian nationalism inherently excludes certain groups in societies and is worlds apart from some other forms of socialism even if the goal of both is to end or reduce class conflict.

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