Posts
Post 32: 12/25/06
Discrepant Correlation:
Ezra Pound and the "F Scale"
I
Young people sometimes get rebellious
ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down. (21)
Liberty is not a
right but a duty. To own property, not a right but a duty. I wonder how long it
is going to take you to learn that. (“Gold: England”; 55)
Comment: you are not legitimate until you have accepted legitimacy as I have
defined it [authoritarian submission as requirement for agency].
II
A person who had bad manners, habits, and
breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people. (12)
Plenty of muckers
down there settin’ pretty, and drawin’ 5000 dollars or ten thousand a year for
not tellin’. I reckon it is Mencius who thought that “the true sage seeks not
repose.” (“On Resuming”; 24)
Comment: those who usurp legitimacy are uncouth, but the ethically superior must
stoop to their methods [conventionalism as perverse logic].
III
If people would talk less and work more,
everybody would be better off. (37)
Oh, but the new money
will not be measured by labor. The Morgenthau prices will certainly not take
into account the value of labor. (title unknown; 362)
Comment: if money represented labor directly, there would be no need for fast
talkers or money changers [authoritarian aggression as explanation].
IV
Most people don’t realize how much our
lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places. (38)
I want to separate in
your minds the mercantilist administrative basis of an economic order, and the
accountancy, the tricks played with bits of paper: bank ledgers, engraved
certificates. (“Complexity”; 234)
Comment: I will force you to see how the underlying order lies told in public
places have been made to change places [“toughness” as rhetoric].
V
The businessman and the manufacturer are
much more important to society than the artist and the professor. (41)
The Palazzo was of no
military importance. Neither were Gaudier-Brzeska’s charcoal drawings. . . . I
suppose it is due to me that some of his sculpture is in the S. Kensington or
the Tate Gallery. (“On the Nature of Treachery”; 293)
Comment: the destruction of art and culture is a precondition for the will to
power [anti-intraception as the public denial of private vulnerability].
VI
Wars and social troubles may some day be
ended by an earthquake or flood that will destroy the whole world. (33)
Kipling said it: he
said the Americans obligingly slaughtered each other during the Civil War, so
that the Czechoslovaks could inherit Boston Common. (“Violence”; 173)
Comment: total violence is the product of incommensurate social logics and only produces more of them [projectivity of unconscious impulses].
VII
Science has its place, but there are many
important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. (4)
And I finally took to
noticin’ the waves of credulity that pass over ‘em. They know that most of what
they print is horse. But they believe certain unprinted rumors. Sure, we were
set to invade Dakar. (“The Stage in America”; 33)
Comment: nothing guarantees the distinction between truth and fiction; all
understanding is arbitrary [superstition as the converse of power].
VIII
Homosexuals are hardly better than
criminals and ought to be severely punished. (39)
We have heard much
less of the secret war that the U.S. LOST in 1863, while the boys in blue and
the boys in grey were obligingly dying and taking the spot light. . . . And both
sides were vanquished. (“Economic Aggression”; 307)
Comment: private interests are defined as what everybody knows is going on but
cannot admit in public [sex as simultaneous attraction and denial].
IX
Familiarity breeds contempt. (43)
Lord knows you have
the equipment, as contrasted to what I have available. You have your BBC with
your archives. And I have not one disc, not one phonorecord available . . . But
your use of them is deficient. (“Lost or Stolen”; 376)
Comment: I know I am not going to be believed, and it’s all your fault [cynicism
as hostility toward self as seen through the eyes of others].
X
What this country needs most, more than
laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in
whom the people can put their faith. (23)
And WILL you, after
Japan is thru with you, take on Russia? In order to maintain the banking
monopoly? With Mr. Willie Wiseman, late of the British secret service, ensconced
in Kuhn, Loeb, and Co., to direct you and rule you? (“Zion”; 285)
Comment: the perversion of private interest demands a controlling order to
guarantee the public good [authoritarian submission as auto-punition].
XI
What the youth needs most is strict
discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and
country. (13)
Then came the
disparagement of the system. “Decline of democratic DOGMA,” wrote Henry Adams
shiftin’ his words about hither and yon. The decline as I see it waren’t in the
DOGMA, it lay absolutely leaving the dogma high and dry. (“Opportunity
Recognized”; 110)
Comment: progress has been confused with decline, leaving us no moral standards
to measure either with [aggression as compromise formation].
XII
Every person should have complete faith in
some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question. (8)
A deliberate attempt
has, I believe, been made to blot out the historic record. And that attempt I
propose to combat. I have, in fact, been combating it, for some time. As did my
grandfather before me. (“To Recapitulate”; 260–61)
Comment: unseen manipulators have undermined reasonable debate over the
historical record [fate as determined by mysterious unknown forces].
XIII
Human nature being what it is, there will
always be war and conflict. (6)
You are at war to
conceal the fact that a lot of purchasing power, a lot of capital comes from a
hoax. Damn the hoax. But don’t go out and die for just bein’ idiots.
(“Superstition”; 213)
Comment: war is the direct consequence of the denial of the causes of war, i.e.,
war by other means [destructiveness as constant and inevitable].
XIV
People can be divided into two distinct
classes: the weak and the strong. (26)
Those swamps had been
lying thaar breedin’ malaria for over two thousand years, sometimes a bright boy
would take a smack at ‘em and dry up a bit or a corner. But the FASCIST regime
lit in and got quite a lot of [it] dried, and under healthy cultivation.
(“Aberration”; 101)
Comment: metaphors like wet and dry, weak and strong, passive and active
comprise a single system [dominance as necessitated by weakness].
XV
The wild sex lives of the old Greeks and
Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in
places where people might least expect it. (35)
One of these days you
will have to start thinking about the problem of race, BREED, preservation. I do
NOT like to think of my race as going toward total extinction, NOR into absolute
bondage. (“Disbursement of Wisdom”; 190)
Comment: race is a sexual drive greater than any one person, out of control and
in need of control [dangerous things as happening all around us].
XVI
Nowadays more and more people are prying
into matters that should remain personal and private. (31)
Tenth anniversary
edition, International Publishers, 100,000 copies at 10 cents, probably
reprinted dozens of times during the past decade, as they will have already
celebrated a 20th anniversary. (“Stalin”; 350)
Comment: truth proliferates out of control, being widely disseminated, but still
subject to total denial [subjectivity as the private made public].
XVII
Obedience and respect for authority are
the most important virtues children should learn. (1)
And even my own
observations date largely before the opening of the present hostilities, as do
those of my grandfather expressed in the U.S. Congress in 1878. I defend the
particularly American, North American, United States heritage. (“To
Consolidate”; 393)
Comment: my perspective is my inheritance; it is not my interpretation but a
matter of historical record [rigid adherence as conventional value].
XVIII
Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on
children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be
publicly whipped, or worse. (25)
Think a bit about
secret taxation. Then think of law. I know that is hard. . . . But still, draw
back a moment, think about law. What is the aim of law? (“Surprise”; 327)
Comment: the law is being flaunted everywhere, in public and in private, and we
cannot acknowledge it [sex as the motive force for all secrets].
XIX
It is best to use some prewar authorities
in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos. (22)
AND I do NOT want the
United States to lose Hawaii. I do not much hanker to have us become a race of
cheats and thieves makin’ war (de facto) on the South American people for the
sake of a job lot of loan sharks. (“Indecision”; 85)
Comment: omnipotence seeks its own proper scale, and must leave alone what it
cannot control absolutely [power must be preserved at all costs].
XX
Some day it will probably be shown that
astrology can explain a lot of things. (29)
The documents were
mislaid or hidden. It is only recently we have begun to get at the facts, facts
of the great betrayal, the sell out to London Jewry. (“Brain Trust”; 148)
Comment: explanation is the correspondence of a coherent order to an incoherent
one; there is a chasm between them [determination as subject].
XXI
No sane, normal, decent person could ever
think of hurting a close friend or relative. (42)
It would probably
never occur to you that the attitude of my compatriots was hostile to me, during
the 12 years I spent in London. It turned friendly in 1920 when I shifted over
to Paris. What causes that? (“Anglophilia”; 245)
Comment: they do not comprehend what they have done to me; if they did, they
would cease to do it [ingroups as scenes of persecution].
XXII
When a person has a problem or worry, it
is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful
things. (9)
Of course if some
Santa Claus is going to come along and pay the bill for you, that is a different
matter. But just what far planet, or comet do you expect Santa Claus to descent
from? (“Objection (Protesta)”; 372)
Comment: denial is the lack of fit of explanation to circumstances that it
cannot control absolutely [imagination as symptom of lack of authority].
XXIII
Most of our social problems would be
solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked, and feeble-minded
people. (34)
And in the mornings I
write letters to and read letters from the most intelligent of my
contemporaries, and Mr. Churchill and the brute Rosefield, and their kike postal
spies and obstructers, kikarian and/or others annoy me by cuttin’ off my normal
mental intercourse with my colleagues. (“Books and Music”; 7)
Comment: the ideal of universal correspondence of enlightened minds is being
ruined by perverse obstructers [violation as equivalent to order].
XXIV
Nowadays when so many different kinds of
people move around and mix together so much, a person has to protect himself
especially carefully against catching an infection or disease from them. (18)
For years economics
professors have been lying, even going so far as to deprecate loans BY THE
STATE, when the fleet that won the battle of Salamis was BUILT with money lent
by the Athenian state to the ship builders, INSTEAD of morgagin’ the whole
nation to kikes, Biddles, swine, and enemies of the people as has been done in
damn near every nation ever since the Stank of England was founded. (“Aristotle
and Adams”; 390)
Comment: value comes from the author or state; the detractors of value poison
the source and corrupt the body politic [danger as all around us].
XXV
There is hardly anything lower than a
person who does not feel a great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents.
(27)
FIVE million youths
without jobs / FOUR million adults illiterates / 15 million ‘vocational
misfits’, that is with small chance for jobs/ NINE million persons annual,
injured in preventable industrial accidents / One hundred thousand violent
crimes. The Eunited States ov America / 3rd year of the reign of F. Roosevelt,
signed F. Delano, his uncle. (“Canto 46”; 38)
Comment: our proper inheritance has been stolen from us by the perversion of the
signifiers of its value [condemnation as defense of personality].
XXVI
Some people are born with an urge to jump
from high places. (16)
The Freudian Jews,
paralyzing the nucleus of will in his goyim victim. The unFreudian chewess
eating like a boll weevil into the creative will of her victim. (“Romance”; 297)
Comment: destructive others undermine our will and make us impotent, in so doing
call out for punishment [stereotypes as symptoms of desire].
XXVII
No weakness or difficulty can hold us back
if we have enough will power. (2)
Also Mussolini
talking about the fight to grow enough wheat to feed Italy as being the kind of
fight he prefers. Well, that was the effort that brought out American hostility
all right enough. (“Why Pick on the Jew”; 53)
Comment: will power is competition that cannot be opposed, guaranteed by the
opposition shown to it [aggression as proof of its legitimacy].
XXVIII
Nobody ever learned anything really
important except through suffering. (44)
Why is he such an
abject moral and intellectual coward that he DARE not face the arguments about
money that go over this air from me, as an independent speaker, and from the
REGULAR staff speakers, whenever they touch on the problem of making money by
FOUNTAIN pen scribblin’ instead of doing an honest day’s work? (“Comic Relief”;
88–89)
Comment: to enter public discourse is undergo a rite of humiliation that accedes
to the right of speech [submission as abstract moral imperative].
XXIX
An insult to our honor should always be
punished. (19)
You would not have
let the grossest and most blatant asses in public life in the United States tell
you such imbecilities. And you would not have swallowed the insulting lies of
the British papers on the subject. (“As to Pathology and Psychoses”; 158)
Comment: our constant humiliation is intended to undermine our integrity, but it
only degrades our humiliators [rejection as automatic denial].
XXX
It is more than just chance that Japan had
an earthquake on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1944. (Form 60, 18)
You are in black
darkness and confusion. You have been hugger-muggered, and carom-shotted into a
war, and you know NOTHING about it. You know NOTHING about the forces that
caused it, or you know next to nothing. (“Darkness”; 202)
Comment: the unknown is the source of all error in interpretation, confirming
all certainty of explanation [mystery as the engine of history].
Sources:
Theodor Adorno et al., The
Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), 255–57.
Leonard W. Doob, ed., Ezra
Pound Speaking: Radio Speeches of World War II (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 1978)
[Text copyright © Barrett Watten 2006.]