Pound for Pound
Anne Applebaum rapped the big media for laudatory obituaries of the architect Philip Johnson, who died in January. The obituaries noted his towering intellect, counted his many awards, and glossed over his serious involvement with the Nazis in the 1930s and '40s.
Then she takes it to the next level:
Possibly. Except one example, which Applebaum cited briefly earlier in her piece, defies the pattern: Ezra Pound, the central figure in early 20th century poetry.
He saw the best of his generation blasted and gassed in the trenches of World War I, and then once the war cleared the field, he watched mediocre but active minds grab all the prizes, the teaching posts and publishing contracts, often making their reputation by imitating Pound and others who stuck to their art and starved for it. After that war, he lived among a literary public so revolted by carnage that it turned its back on the heritage of Western Civilization (a term that, even now, has a faintly 19th century academic tinge). But that learning was at the root of all that Pound new. He arrived at maturity with the skills of a great poet, only to find his audience half-slaughtered, half-disgusted. So he wrote for the dead, for the generation that should have been, and for whatever hope he had that the future would find the path again.
Like many bitter men in the wake of a great, destructive war, he turned to economic to find the roots of what went wrong. His journey moved from socialism, to the now-obscure "Social Credit" movement of Maj. C.H. Douglas, and ultimately, to Italian fascism.
If you write off everyone who was seduced by Mussolini in the 1920s and '30s, you throw out an awful lot -- Rilke, for instance. Fascism was one of humanity's disastrous wrong turns, but some essentially decent people arrived there by a trajectory that leads back through World War I, the 19th century, and beyond, and the path they took made it seem like a viable future at the time. You don't have to agree with them to understand them and accept their mistake. Italian fascism was brutal and criminal, but it was not the same thing as German National Socialism (or as French or Croatian fascism, etc.). At any rate, it is a very different thing to declare oneself a fascist in 1926 than it is to do so today, or any time after 1945.
Pound isn't praised by modern-day skinheads, nor are his works read aloud at KKK cross-burnings. His devotees and followers have been decidedly un-fascist people like Louis Zukofsky, Charles Olsen, Hugh Kenner, Guy Davenport, some of the really generous souls of our time. Hemingway had him figured out: "Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it."
In other words, he fits Applebaum's picture of a talented philosophical crank. But his fate was much different than Philip Johnson's. His particular offense seems to have been not anti-Semitism, or fellow-travelling with European fascists, or acerbic criticism of contemporary American politicians, but treason.
Shades of Guantanamo, eh? He was brought back to America, declared insane (without formal diagnosis), and locked up in a ward at St. Elizabeth's, where he stayed until the petitions of prominent writers secured his release in 1958. He moved back to Italy and died there in 1972.
It seems to me Pound could have come back to America after Pearl Harbor and leveled the same criticisms, written the same books, talked a blue streak about Roosevelt and the Jews, and not gotten in too much official trouble. But when he took to the air waves and let himself be used as enemy propaganda -- even though he was not told what to say, and he insisted his motives were the most purely patriotic -- he moved himself into a different category in the eyes of many Americans.
Speer, Riefenstahl, von Karajan, whatever their level of complicity, were Germans whose actions can be interpreted (rightly or not) as simple patriotism, something we understand. It was an American, after all, who said "My country, right or wrong."
Is this another one of those American things that makes Europeans look at us like we got dropped off on the wrong planet? The more complex case of Marlene Dietrich suggests it isn't. The Weimar film sex goddess sang for Allied troops, recorded anti-Nazi records in German, and raised huge sums in War Bonds during World War II. However she was shunned as a traitor in her homeland, even by many who were not particularly pro-Hitler, and she did not perform there again until 1960, and thereafter only rarely. Only after her death did Berliners begin to thaw their attitude about her.
It's not so much what you say, it's where you stand when you say it. No matter his motive, Pound had crossed the line between "dissent" and "working for the other side." In that case, justly or not, modernist poet or dishwasher, you're on our list.
Then she takes it to the next level:
But his death makes me think that the rest of us should occasionally reflect a bit harder about why we find it so easy to condemn the likes of Prince Harry, a silly, thoughtless boy, and so hard to condemn Philip Johnson, a brilliant, witty aesthete. Or why it was thought scandalous when an allegedly anti-Semitic Ukrainian businessman was allowed to ride on Colin Powell's plane to Kiev last week, while Johnson, who once wrote a positive review of "Mein Kampf," lectured at Harvard University. Or why the Nuremberg tribunal didn't impose the death penalty on the urbane Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, or why the Academy Awards ceremony in 2004 solemnly noted the death of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's filmmaker, or why Herbert von Karajan, a Nazi Party member who never apologized at all -- party membership, he once said, "advanced my career" -- continued to conduct orchestras in all the great concert halls of Europe. We may think we believe any affiliation with Nazism is wrong, but as a society, our actual definition of "collaboration" is in fact quite slippery.
In the end, I suspect the explanation is simple: People whose gifts lie in esoteric fields get a pass that others don't. Or, to put it differently, if you use crude language and wear a swastika, you're a pariah. But if you make up a complex, witty persona, use irony and jokes to brush off hard questions, and construct an elaborate philosophy to obfuscate your past, then you're an elder statesman, a trendsetter, a provocateur and -- most tantalizingly -- an enigma.
Possibly. Except one example, which Applebaum cited briefly earlier in her piece, defies the pattern: Ezra Pound, the central figure in early 20th century poetry.
He saw the best of his generation blasted and gassed in the trenches of World War I, and then once the war cleared the field, he watched mediocre but active minds grab all the prizes, the teaching posts and publishing contracts, often making their reputation by imitating Pound and others who stuck to their art and starved for it. After that war, he lived among a literary public so revolted by carnage that it turned its back on the heritage of Western Civilization (a term that, even now, has a faintly 19th century academic tinge). But that learning was at the root of all that Pound new. He arrived at maturity with the skills of a great poet, only to find his audience half-slaughtered, half-disgusted. So he wrote for the dead, for the generation that should have been, and for whatever hope he had that the future would find the path again.
Like many bitter men in the wake of a great, destructive war, he turned to economic to find the roots of what went wrong. His journey moved from socialism, to the now-obscure "Social Credit" movement of Maj. C.H. Douglas, and ultimately, to Italian fascism.
If you write off everyone who was seduced by Mussolini in the 1920s and '30s, you throw out an awful lot -- Rilke, for instance. Fascism was one of humanity's disastrous wrong turns, but some essentially decent people arrived there by a trajectory that leads back through World War I, the 19th century, and beyond, and the path they took made it seem like a viable future at the time. You don't have to agree with them to understand them and accept their mistake. Italian fascism was brutal and criminal, but it was not the same thing as German National Socialism (or as French or Croatian fascism, etc.). At any rate, it is a very different thing to declare oneself a fascist in 1926 than it is to do so today, or any time after 1945.
Pound isn't praised by modern-day skinheads, nor are his works read aloud at KKK cross-burnings. His devotees and followers have been decidedly un-fascist people like Louis Zukofsky, Charles Olsen, Hugh Kenner, Guy Davenport, some of the really generous souls of our time. Hemingway had him figured out: "Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it."
In other words, he fits Applebaum's picture of a talented philosophical crank. But his fate was much different than Philip Johnson's. His particular offense seems to have been not anti-Semitism, or fellow-travelling with European fascists, or acerbic criticism of contemporary American politicians, but treason.
In 1940, after having returned to Italy from a tour of the USA during which he attempted to oppose the move to war against the Axis, Pound offered his services as a radio broadcaster. The broadcasts called "The American Hour," began in January 1941. Pound considered himself to be a patriotic American. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he attempted to return to the USA, but the American Embassy refused him entry. With no means of livelihood, Pound resumed his broadcasts, attacking the Roosevelt administration and usury in a folksy, American style, with a mix of cultural criticism.
In 1943 Pound was indicted in the USA for treason. Hemingway, concerned at the fate of his old mentor after the war, suggested the possibility of an "insanity" plea and the idea caught on among some of Pound's and Hemingway's literary friends who had landed jobs in the US Government. Other interests were pressing for the death penalty for America's most eminent cultural figure.
Two days after Mussolini's murder Pound was taken at his home by Italian partisans after he had unsuccessfully attempted to turn himself over to American forces. Putting a book on Confucius in his pocket he went with the partisans expecting to be murdered. Instead he ended up at an American camp at Pisa constructed for the most vicious military prisoners. Pound was confined to a bare, concrete floored iron cage in the burning heat, lit continuously throughout the night. Pound had a physical breakdown and was transferred to a medical compound, where he got to work on the Pisan Cantos.
Shades of Guantanamo, eh? He was brought back to America, declared insane (without formal diagnosis), and locked up in a ward at St. Elizabeth's, where he stayed until the petitions of prominent writers secured his release in 1958. He moved back to Italy and died there in 1972.
It seems to me Pound could have come back to America after Pearl Harbor and leveled the same criticisms, written the same books, talked a blue streak about Roosevelt and the Jews, and not gotten in too much official trouble. But when he took to the air waves and let himself be used as enemy propaganda -- even though he was not told what to say, and he insisted his motives were the most purely patriotic -- he moved himself into a different category in the eyes of many Americans.
Speer, Riefenstahl, von Karajan, whatever their level of complicity, were Germans whose actions can be interpreted (rightly or not) as simple patriotism, something we understand. It was an American, after all, who said "My country, right or wrong."
Is this another one of those American things that makes Europeans look at us like we got dropped off on the wrong planet? The more complex case of Marlene Dietrich suggests it isn't. The Weimar film sex goddess sang for Allied troops, recorded anti-Nazi records in German, and raised huge sums in War Bonds during World War II. However she was shunned as a traitor in her homeland, even by many who were not particularly pro-Hitler, and she did not perform there again until 1960, and thereafter only rarely. Only after her death did Berliners begin to thaw their attitude about her.
It's not so much what you say, it's where you stand when you say it. No matter his motive, Pound had crossed the line between "dissent" and "working for the other side." In that case, justly or not, modernist poet or dishwasher, you're on our list.
Labels: Ezra Pound, fascism, patriotism, Philip Johnson
