Great analysis mate. Never heard of Pound until now.
My answer regarding the paradox: yes, I think you can isolate artistic merit from the artist and also maintain a work’s context with the artist. Similarly to how you described, although I would add that a way to do it is by identifying aesthetic qualities in abstraction, and then introducing the artist’s perspective/context/inspiration. Or vice versa. Value will always be gleaned from artist, art and audience, it’s never an only/or in that regard. I do think to only fixate on artistic abstraction or ignore its merits completely are irresponsible and wrong-headed, and I think you summarized this well by identifying this paradox (although I don’t find it all that paradoxical myself).
Since Pound was a true believer, I think there is an opportunity here to make a distinction in the analysis of his ideology that can move beyond a traditional moral rejection of fascism. Because Pound genuinely believed his ideology was morally righteous and in service of the laborers and people he identified with, it’s worth interrogating what this belief was founded on. It seems like the core aspects of his fixation were corrupted by Utopianism and race essentialism. His desire to promote the welfare of people over usury was distorted by a lack of scientific and dialectical materialism, and the association of intrinsic traits with biological race pseudoscience (as was rather common then as it is now). He identified a pitfall of capitalism, but was seduced by abstract promises for the people that could never be kept by people who based their philosophy and morality on false ground. I think this is why his ostensibly left-leaning inclinations horseshoe’d so strongly.
If Pound were to have been executed, it would have been no better than any other example of when state power has been infused with an ideology to determine the morality of and authorize the censorship of the right for man to live, which I think is reprehensible and the antithesis of what should be sought in a government of sound people.
Jan 14, 2023·edited Jan 14, 2023Liked by Benjamin J. Smith
On Feb. 20, 1949, the Library of Congress announced that the first recipient of its Bollingen Prize for poetry would be Ezra Pound for "The Pisan Cantos."
The Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress, who voted the award and who included such distinguished poets as W. H. Auden, Louise Bogan, T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken, Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren, had anticipated objections. "In their view, however," as their public statement read, "the possibility of such objection did not alter the responsibility assumed by the Jury of Selection. This was to make a choice for the award among the eligible books . . . according to the stated terms of the Bollingen Prize. To permit other considerations than that of poetry achievement to sway the decision would destroy the significance of the award and would in principle deny the validity of that objective perception of value on which civilized society must rest."
Macdonald noted that “one of the most repellent aspects” of both Soviet communism and the Italian fascism of Ezra Pound’s heart was that there was no possibility of discerning objective value under such systems. He argued further that in order to preserve any hope of objectivity, it is vital that “no one sphere of human activity [be] exalted over the rest” and that “clear distinctions be maintained between the various spheres, so that the value of an artist’s work or a scientist’s researches is not confused with the value of their politics.” The woeful alternative, he noted, is “the obliteration of the boundary lines between the various aspects of culture—or better, the imperialist conquest of all the rest by politics.”
A mature adult, as well as a society of mature adults, can wrap their brains around the idea that ugly provisional people can make beautiful eternal works. Unfortunately our society is a hothouse playpen of weaponized moralism, where people find much more gratification in denunciation than in art or esthetics.
Also, someone please let me know when people like Sartre and de Beauvoir get anathametized for pimping for Mao, or Sontag and Mailer and Chomsky for Mao and Castro (I could go on but the list of 20th century "engaged intellectuals" who supported murderous dictators is endless). My point is that these injections of moral indignation always seem to have a blind spot to the Left.
I always thought that one of the fundamental critiques of capitalism is that, under capitalism, the marginal utility of a dollar is always and everywhere one dollar.
It doesn't matter whether the dollar was found, earned or stolen, whether it was generated by selling heroin to schoolkids or by teaching those same schoolkids to read.
I also find it perversely ironic that Jews are simultaneously blamed for capitalism and communism, for being too religious and for being atheists, for being too insular and for being too cosmopolitan, all at once, a rationale to fit any prejudice.
This is easily one of the best recent pieces on Pound I have read. I have always been convinced that even the writers know that the vocation of imagination, of expressing experience and articulating memory is more important than they themselves are or their views in the grander scheme of things. Like you said, ideology is the death of imagination; it is definitively of reading, too, if we cannot suspend our ideology to really appreciate the work of imagination. I believe this is one of the problems we are facing today: young people like me dismissing works of literature and philosophy that fashion our collective mind because the author’s ideologies are questionable. When faced with this sort of situation, I believe the best we can do to maintain intellectual integrity is to follow Terrance Hayes in his poem “Snow for Wallace Stevens” by showing we “have a capacity for love without
forgiveness.” Sometimes, we might trying opting for both.
I believe that by reading the morally questionable thinkers, intellectuals, poets, even people we look up to to our own disappointment, we are essentially affirming our open-mindedness while, by consequence, setting ourselves up not to make the same choices they did. Finally, in intellectual engagement of any kind there should be no room for absolutist stance; even Pound in his essay “A Retrospect” says “never to take anything as dogma.”
It’s hard to confront the (sometimes ugly) truth about our heroes. I’ve been listening to a series that presents the dark side of Steve Jobs. At least his friend and Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, comes across as a decent human being (“Behind the Bastards” is the name of the podcast).
Great analysis mate. Never heard of Pound until now.
My answer regarding the paradox: yes, I think you can isolate artistic merit from the artist and also maintain a work’s context with the artist. Similarly to how you described, although I would add that a way to do it is by identifying aesthetic qualities in abstraction, and then introducing the artist’s perspective/context/inspiration. Or vice versa. Value will always be gleaned from artist, art and audience, it’s never an only/or in that regard. I do think to only fixate on artistic abstraction or ignore its merits completely are irresponsible and wrong-headed, and I think you summarized this well by identifying this paradox (although I don’t find it all that paradoxical myself).
Since Pound was a true believer, I think there is an opportunity here to make a distinction in the analysis of his ideology that can move beyond a traditional moral rejection of fascism. Because Pound genuinely believed his ideology was morally righteous and in service of the laborers and people he identified with, it’s worth interrogating what this belief was founded on. It seems like the core aspects of his fixation were corrupted by Utopianism and race essentialism. His desire to promote the welfare of people over usury was distorted by a lack of scientific and dialectical materialism, and the association of intrinsic traits with biological race pseudoscience (as was rather common then as it is now). He identified a pitfall of capitalism, but was seduced by abstract promises for the people that could never be kept by people who based their philosophy and morality on false ground. I think this is why his ostensibly left-leaning inclinations horseshoe’d so strongly.
If Pound were to have been executed, it would have been no better than any other example of when state power has been infused with an ideology to determine the morality of and authorize the censorship of the right for man to live, which I think is reprehensible and the antithesis of what should be sought in a government of sound people.
On Feb. 20, 1949, the Library of Congress announced that the first recipient of its Bollingen Prize for poetry would be Ezra Pound for "The Pisan Cantos."
The Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress, who voted the award and who included such distinguished poets as W. H. Auden, Louise Bogan, T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken, Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren, had anticipated objections. "In their view, however," as their public statement read, "the possibility of such objection did not alter the responsibility assumed by the Jury of Selection. This was to make a choice for the award among the eligible books . . . according to the stated terms of the Bollingen Prize. To permit other considerations than that of poetry achievement to sway the decision would destroy the significance of the award and would in principle deny the validity of that objective perception of value on which civilized society must rest."
Macdonald noted that “one of the most repellent aspects” of both Soviet communism and the Italian fascism of Ezra Pound’s heart was that there was no possibility of discerning objective value under such systems. He argued further that in order to preserve any hope of objectivity, it is vital that “no one sphere of human activity [be] exalted over the rest” and that “clear distinctions be maintained between the various spheres, so that the value of an artist’s work or a scientist’s researches is not confused with the value of their politics.” The woeful alternative, he noted, is “the obliteration of the boundary lines between the various aspects of culture—or better, the imperialist conquest of all the rest by politics.”
A mature adult, as well as a society of mature adults, can wrap their brains around the idea that ugly provisional people can make beautiful eternal works. Unfortunately our society is a hothouse playpen of weaponized moralism, where people find much more gratification in denunciation than in art or esthetics.
Also, someone please let me know when people like Sartre and de Beauvoir get anathametized for pimping for Mao, or Sontag and Mailer and Chomsky for Mao and Castro (I could go on but the list of 20th century "engaged intellectuals" who supported murderous dictators is endless). My point is that these injections of moral indignation always seem to have a blind spot to the Left.
I always thought that one of the fundamental critiques of capitalism is that, under capitalism, the marginal utility of a dollar is always and everywhere one dollar.
It doesn't matter whether the dollar was found, earned or stolen, whether it was generated by selling heroin to schoolkids or by teaching those same schoolkids to read.
I also find it perversely ironic that Jews are simultaneously blamed for capitalism and communism, for being too religious and for being atheists, for being too insular and for being too cosmopolitan, all at once, a rationale to fit any prejudice.
Great article! Hope to read more from you soon
This is easily one of the best recent pieces on Pound I have read. I have always been convinced that even the writers know that the vocation of imagination, of expressing experience and articulating memory is more important than they themselves are or their views in the grander scheme of things. Like you said, ideology is the death of imagination; it is definitively of reading, too, if we cannot suspend our ideology to really appreciate the work of imagination. I believe this is one of the problems we are facing today: young people like me dismissing works of literature and philosophy that fashion our collective mind because the author’s ideologies are questionable. When faced with this sort of situation, I believe the best we can do to maintain intellectual integrity is to follow Terrance Hayes in his poem “Snow for Wallace Stevens” by showing we “have a capacity for love without
forgiveness.” Sometimes, we might trying opting for both.
I believe that by reading the morally questionable thinkers, intellectuals, poets, even people we look up to to our own disappointment, we are essentially affirming our open-mindedness while, by consequence, setting ourselves up not to make the same choices they did. Finally, in intellectual engagement of any kind there should be no room for absolutist stance; even Pound in his essay “A Retrospect” says “never to take anything as dogma.”
Thank you for the clear prose and analysis.
What is fascism, anyway?
Good read. I’ll avoid Pound. 😀
It’s hard to confront the (sometimes ugly) truth about our heroes. I’ve been listening to a series that presents the dark side of Steve Jobs. At least his friend and Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, comes across as a decent human being (“Behind the Bastards” is the name of the podcast).