|
March 31, 2006
Fascist-free speech is fascist free speech?
While I'm on the subject of books, Jeff from Beautiful Atrocities reminded me in the comments of something that he, Sean Kinsell and I had posted about before -- that San Francisco's City Lights doesn't sell books by fascists. Hmmmm.... I don't know why it took me so long to think of this, but I have one question: What about Ezra Pound? (Pound is not new topic on this blog, but this is purely a fascist-free-speech question.) While Ezra Pound has to be considered a quintessential fascist by definition (the man avoided trial for treason by commitment to a mental hospital), apparently City Lights makes an exception to it's "We don't carry books by fascists" rule if the fascists are leaders of a particular literary tradition. I'm not sure quite how this exception to the City Lights Rule works, so I was forced to look for guidance in the various pontifications of City Lights' founder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In an interview with Jeff Troiano, Ferlinghetti condemns fascism as a threat to free speech: Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.I think Ferlinghetti is absolutely right on that account. The anti-Danish rioting over the Muhammad cartoons is a classic example. (Which means City Lights probably supports the Danish cartoonists in their struggle against fascism, right?) While the fascism Ferlinghetti opposes the most appears to be Bush fascism ("American corporate monoculture" is presided over by Bush's "bandits" and "international criminals"), he proudly mentions his long association with Pound's leading publisher: How do you envision the future of publishing? E-books?I guess the important thing is that Pound wasn't associated with a "corporate conglomerate." Over the Fourth of July weekend in 2003, Ferlinghetti attended the Ezra Pound Conference (held in honor of Pound in his native Idaho) where he read gave a poetry reading: Taking advantage of the Idahoan connections, the 20th International Ezra Pound Conference takes place in Sun Valley over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Scholars and students from 10 different countries will attend the meeting to discuss Pound's life and work. Two eminent and accomplished American poets, Robert Creeley and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, will join them.Now that's cool! I like honoring authentic fascists as opposed to the Bushitler McHalliburton ReChimplican wannabes. But they have to tone it down. Please! Image. Context. Which means that Pound's fascism has to be seen in, um, context: Despite his Fascist leanings during World War II, he helped define and promote a modernist sensibility in poetry.Pound may be a fascist, but his "sensibility" is "modern." And that's what's important. Elaborating on Pound's modernist sensibility at City Lights' website, Ferlinghetti describes Pound as part of an important movement: The attack had indeed begun much earlier, with Whitman's "barbaric yawp," and was carried forward by the American lingo of poets like W.C. Williams, Ezra Pound, and e.e. cummings, further aided and abetted after World War II by poets of the Black Mountain School--Robert Creeley, Charles Olson--who were in tune with what the New York abstract expressionists--de Kooning and Kline and Motherwell and Pollock--were doing in their spontaneous gestural action painting.Fine. OK. I have no problem seeing Pound as part of modernism. Hell, he may be part of post-modernism. My problem is that the man was an unapologetic, unreconstructed fascist, and this is being ignored by people who not only claim that refuse to sell books by fascists, but who complain that free speech is under attack by fascists! This is a bit much. Then there's Ferlinghetti's own poem -- "Baseball Canto," -- described as being "as much about Pound and his influence as it is about the epic nature and forces embedded in the game of baseball." It begins: Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,I know I'm starting to belabor the point, but Ferlinghetti's attachment to Pound is itself an exercise in belaboring the point. Here's Ferlinghetti interviewed by Ernest Beyl: I am working on a documentary poem now called "Americus." It's modeled on Ezra Pound's "Cantos." And if you don't like it, GO POUND SAND!
posted by Eric on 03.31.06 at 09:17 AM
Comments
I've read Pound and have absolutely no problem with any store selling his books. But when they say, "We don't carry books by fascists," it's a little insulting. Whether all of Pound's work was necessarily separate from his fascism is debatable. ("Usura" is a good example http://www.utpjournals.com/product/utq/672/672_review_munk.html). But I don't think that's relevant, because City Lights doesn't claim they refuse to carry books FAVORING fascism; they refuse to carry books BY fascists. Eric Scheie · March 31, 2006 04:37 PM Well, Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter is excellent, in spite of the fact it was written by a fascist! I bet they don't carry him either ;p beautifulatrocities · March 31, 2006 07:49 PM The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all "bottom line" editors; everything depends on the money. This at least is true. I wrote a novel & nabbed a big agent (he sold Wicked) to flog it, but it's going nowhere. It's sort of James & the Giant Peach meets Beetlejuice, & the rejections almost never have to do with the book, but with the rules of the genre, which are quite arcane (the protagonist must be so old, it can only be so long, etc). To me, it's rather more insulting than someone saying the book sucks beautifulatrocities · March 31, 2006 07:52 PM They only ban books from Black Shirt Fascists, but they just love books by Red Flag Fascists. If they were concerned about the fascist threat to freedom of speech, they should be equally concerned about the threat from Marxists, Stalinists, Maoists and other Left Fascists. It's the same mentality and the same threat. Kenneth · March 31, 2006 09:33 PM What does this mean for Hegel and Heidegger? banopus · April 1, 2006 06:42 PM |
|
December 2006
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR
Search the Site
E-mail
Classics To Go
Archives
December 2006
November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives
Recent Entries
Holiday Blogging
The right to be irrational? I'm cool with the passion fashion Climate change meltdown at the polls? If you're wrong, then so is God? Have a nice day, asshole! Scarlet "R"? Consuming power while empowering consumption Shrinking is growth! My dirty thoughts
Links
Site Credits
|
|
I suppose the difference is that Pound ethically separated his fascism from his art. I was in a writing group once - me & 10 Berkeley liberals - where a woman said she'd never read Mario Vargas Llosa because she didn't like his politics.
I'm like, Honey if we apply that rule we'll soon have to ditch many good writers, including Castro toady Garcia Marquez.
In Before Night Falls, Reinaldo Arenas wrote how Garcia Marquez would fly in on Fidel's pvt jet & appear at rallies for the glory of totalitarianism, while the Cuban writers were in prison, under house arrest, undergoing show trials, or in nuthouses.
I wrote a short story about Elian Gonzalez, called Angel Moreno, which was published in Caribbean Journal, in which I referred to "that Nobel prize-winning writer" aka "Castro's lapdog". Oddly, it wasn't nominated for any of the best stories of the year anthologies...