The Singularity In Time - Mystical Pragmatics: Fill & Download for Free

Most atheists will deny that their position can possibly show changes. They will insist on the presumably undogmatic, supposedly completely ahistorical and uniform definition of atheism as “nothing but the lack of a belief in God(s)”.Atheism is - if we dare the more complex position - highly differentiated basically on two accounts:It has its own rivaling institutions: various associations and platforms in ever changing alliances and under the pressure of an immense internal strife over best tactics and best practices of creating a movement.It is secondly culturally divided. Jewish atheism is not really Roman Catholic atheism. US-American atheism is to a remarkable extent a specific anti-evangelical atheism with its own lines of confrontations and its own self-definition. Continental European - German or Scandinavian atheism - is again different. It is far more than Anglophone atheism a question of indifference without much of an organisational backbone.Rivaling 19th-century and 20th-century movements which continue to shape the present landscape have been materialism, Positivism, Marxism, dialectical materialism, agnosticism …up to Humanism and skepticism. Some of the confrontations were more a matter of style: Humanists were aiming at a respectful coexistence of religions and all shades of “free thought” including “moderate” branches of atheism; and Humanists went for an establishment of free alternative forms of a personal commitment. Rivaling branches of atheism were at the same moment unorganized and rather philosophical and celebrated their own confrontations - like the confrontation between Positivists and Marxist Materialists. A lot of these confrontations are still around underneath the present divisions.The second point, the different cultures of atheism in their embedding in different religious host cultures, is far more intriguing. Most present atheists want to silence this subtlety, since it has the power to create internal dissent. Religion has to be one unified enemy - and atheism one simple negation of that one enemy, so the theory. Here again I will raise the opposition of a lot of atheists: They will claim that they are non-confrontational. They only defend the “natural” position of “reason”, they only react on the aggression of religion (in the singular they create for that purpose) and on the missionary work they are exposed to. This is not exactly the case. Atheism forms movements; it has internet platforms where people are encouraging each other in the non-belief.The 19th-century confrontation between Comtean Positivists and Marxist materialists - the epicenter of all the following internal divisions is today widely forgotten. It was superseded in the course of the 20th century by the cold war confrontation between communist Marxist-Leninist “dialectical materialists” and what they portrayed as “western bourgeois relativism”. Michel Foucault was in this confrontation western postmodern relativist atheism - to be rejected by Eastern bloc scholars. Both agents, west and east, had no bigger chance to attract popular audiences back then - at least not with the atheist side aspect of interest in your question. (Foucault is on a closer look deeply rooted in the 19th-century positivist tradition and aware of this root - the tradition which already created tensions between Marx and Comte in the mid 19th century and between Lenin and Ernst Mach in the early 20th century.)The collapse of communist “materialist” atheism created a vacuum. The former Soviet block disintegrated. Russia saw a revival of its Orthodox Church and a new Russian nationalism. Many of the eastern bloc countries which entered the EU had entered the era of modern indifference and destroyed traditions - and lacked now, after 1989, a national incentive to revive a religious past. (Poland is an exception here, it took Russia’s course on the western side.)The internet allowed the emergence of what was now soon labelled the “New Atheism” with heroes like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris.The rise of political Islam was a trigger here - indirectly (because it was rather reacting on the complementary rise of US-Republican Evangelical exceptionalism: Iran became a force within Islam - back in 1989 when Iran issued its fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The Iranian regime would from now onward support militant religious groups all over the Muslim world - in a rivalry with the Arabian states that had been the central player thus far without a serious competitor.The US were ready to strike back - after 9/11 2001 - which strengthened US Evangelicalism - and New Atheism was suddenly attractive on all these accounts: It exploded on the Internet, it challenged the new Evangelical conservatism - without jumping into the arms of the new Western enemy, Islam. This is briefly why we saw the emergence of an atheism that focuses on US-Evangelicalism and Islam at the same moment - without being really progressive in the old paradigm of being progressive and against capitalism. The New Atheism is capitalist just as it happens to be pro-science and secretly pro-American. The propagandist look at Europe, at Scandinavia, at Germany as the (supposedly) advanced part of the presumably liberal world - but they are no part of that world.The New Atheism of the 1990s and early 2000s has with this history a new face. It is anglophone and targeted at the US-market - the market that became most interesting with the emergence of the World Wide Web.German, Scandinavian or British atheism used to be publicly low profile almost invisible - it was mostly a thing of religious indifference based on the idea that secularism and a globally increase of wealth would destroy religion without further work to be done by declared secularists. The early modern background had already been a step into this passive pragmatic atheism: Nations had decided which religion their subjects would have (“cuius region, eus religio”, so the rule of the Westphalian peace of 1648) - those who would not conform were driven to North America. The 20th century had been even more detrimental to religion: the Nazis defended atheism (before they went into the war-time alliance with Protestantism German Catholicism). The ensuing GDR and the other Eastern communist regimes were even more atheist. Religion proved irrelevant on this map. The post war situation was marked by an increasing phlegma in western Europe and Germany is the typical candidate here: Most Germans left the two central churches simply in order to reduce their taxes. The old churches were on the other hand increasingly tolerant towards atheism in order to stay in contact with the masses they were now losing - their former adherents would still join Christmas services, would still be Catholic or Protestant in their hearts, so the assumption.The US-American stage which became the big market for atheist propaganda after the collapse of the cold war confrontation became different thanks to the focus with US-evangelicalism. There is again a deeper past: The US have been built on religious dissent: on people who decided that their personal religion was more important than any social convention and certainly above any national decision. The European churches, whether Catholic, Protestant or Reformed, aimed at cohesive national orientations. They had collectively discredited Protestant charismatic leaders as a carriers of a new personal madness: Anyone who claimed he could hear God speaking had to be mad. Those who left Europe had apparently no roots in the former mystic Catholicism. Modern European believers spoke in their dismay of “enthusiasts”, of “fanaticks” and they expelled these people since they would destabilize any church and and any state authority in Europe with their charismatic leaders, with leaders who “pretended” that they were enjoying a direct communication with God.US citizens are with this their wider past still highly critical of the nation state and of all traditional church institutions. They focus on charismatic leaders with that direct line to God, on people who claim that they read the Bible literally - without any tradition, on leaders who spread immensely personal experiences such as the “speaking in tongues” of believers who will suddenly speak the language of the Holy Ghost - nonsense they themselves could not translate into a language, so traditional Christians of all confessions - and modern atheists alike.Typical US-protestant Christians of this central tradition know the story of how they personally came to God. The will give accounts of how they were “reborn”. They will claim that they were hardened sinners before they suddenly found a second life in Jesus Christ.US-American atheism is a complementary development to this form of personal religion with its constant focus on charismatic movements. It is just as individualistic, just as personal, just as dominated by charismatic international leaders. To put it in philosophical terms: New Atheism is with its fixation on US-American Evangelicalism not very philosophical. It has nothing to do with Michel Foucault or Marx and Lenin. It has its own TV evangelists, so to say - now working on the web; and it has loads of platforms on which you will read the old personal stories - not of how you came to Jesus Christ but in a complementary subversion: “My way to atheism, my awakening, my personal turning point, how I experienced the new light of reason when I got out of the religious embrace”. The result is not European religious indifference but a confrontation on major platforms in a close embrace with creationists and other weird Evangelical Pentecostal and radically “conservative”, Republican groups. If Jerry Farewell and Ken Ham are heroes of the religious establishment then Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson are counter heroes who will venture any debate with the enemy that is offered to them.Modern Atheism is with this - new - lack of the old philosophical past, this lack Comte versus Marx, Mach versus Lenin, Wittgenstein versus all essentialst philosophy, of Foucault versus the communist state doctrine, immediately immensely political on the US-American stage. It has a Democrat versus Republican agenda with alliances with the LGBT-movement and its own shares in the war on terror: Islam is the atheist enemy just as it is the US-American enemy. Feminism is a weak spot in a movement that gathers behind charismatic male leaders in constant challenges of male US-Evangelical speakers. A simple pro science stance - opposing the rise of Creationism and all the adjoining conspiracy theories - is part of the post 1990s New Atheist brew. New Atheists will be less critical of the scientific revolution than Auguste Comte, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault and the entire revolution of “TOS” the original Star Trek world and fandom had ever been. They dream of exoplanets, colonies on Mars, a strong state that has the power to introduce scientific progress with the effect that it will stop all inequality. Atheist websites and blogs, atheist platforms on Facebook are filled with memes that enforce the common goal and solidify the belief in the bright future we will get as soon as atheism takes over.from the Dawkins foundations Facebook site: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & ScienceThe claim that no such history is possible since atheism is simply the absence of belief is in itself part of the New Atheist paradigm. It turns atheism into something presumably simple and entirely personal (my personal disbelief) without (allegedly) any further social affiliations. It rejects any attempt of a more complex self reflection - which alone would allow a movement that can self-critically discuss its own course.

There are a few qualified but also compelling similarities.Shias like Sufis have an overt culture of saint veneration and relics maintenance compared to Sunnis, with Salafi Sunnis deeming all of this outrageous and heretical.This is the tomb of a Shia saint, the eight Imam, Ali al-Ridha from the lineage of the prophet (sawa), in Mashhad where I now live.This is the tomb of a Shia saintess, the sister of al-Ridha, Fatima Ma’suma, in Qom where I used to study.As you see in both pictures, pilgrims are seeking blessings from the saints and their tombs. Sadly, even watching these pictures may boil the blood in some Salafis among Sunnis. :(Apart from this similarity, Shias don’t have a similar supreme religious office like the Catholic Pope with total universal jurisdiction, but they have a religious office with the potential to be realized by a single religious authority with exclusive universal jurisdiction. That is the office of marja’ taqlid, or an authority on religious law.The last time this office was united in a single religious scholar with universal legal recognition was in the first half of the 20th century in the personality of his holiness, Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Burojerdi.Ayatollah BorujerdiBut before and after than unique period, multiple religious authorities existed in the Shia world. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran changed things a little as Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini rose as the leader of the revolution and finally the head of the newly-founded Islamic Republic, while having a lot of following across the Shia world.But other religious authorities continued their religious jurisdiction, but this new political office of Guardian Jurist in Iran gave one religious scholar a supreme political (but not religious) authority above all other religious scholars in Iran.The deceased and incumbent ‘supreme’ leaders of Iran since the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah KhameneiRead my answers to How good or bad was Ayatollah Khomeini as a leader and person? and What is your opinion about Iran's leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei? for extensive introduction of these two succeeding political leaders.Since then, with a visible political figure at the top, the Shia clerical establishment may on the surface resemble the Catholic Christianity, but the doctrines vary at this level. The Guardian Jurist along with other scholars are considered general representatives of the Occult Shia Imam, Mahdi, who is in turn the representative/caliph of God on Earth. Whereas the Catholic Pope’s singular representation of Jesus is considered exclusive and much more literal compared to a Shia religious authority. The Pope is considered infallible, the Shia religious scholars and the Iranian Guardian Jurist are not!The Pope is an apolitical religious office in theory, but the Guardian Jurist in Iran is both a religious and political office in theory. The Guardian Jurist however doesn’t have religious authority over other religious scholars or even all Shias or Iranians. The political verdicts however are in theory the state law and inviolable in Iran. In practice however you see much flexibility and pragmatism of ordinary politics on the side of the ruling jurist as qualified pragmatism is itself part of the Shia doctrine.As for Sunnis, they also have religious authorities but without political office or a similar spiritual significance as representatives of a holy figure or of the Occult Messiah attached to them. The only attempt at theocracy by any Sunnis in recent history has been the terrible attempt by ISIS with their bigoted alienating ideology and their vicious free-for-all ethical doctrine. As for the Sunni world by large, some Salafis tend to reject religious authority in religious matters and believe a Muslim must learn religious rulings from the sources himself, inspiring potential revision or improvement of religious rulings by competent scholars but also running the risk of facilitating the emergence of radical splinter groups like ISIS who think they can slaughter all those who disagree with their religious opinion!As for comparison to orthodox Christianity, I can’t think of any special similarity other than their religious leaders wearing long beards, but that’s a practice by both Muslim sects in question! :)However, such fancy clothes even if ceremonial are frowned upon by Shia scholars even for secular government officials, who stress both inner and outer modesty. Part of reason why many Shia grand scholars look so poor in appearance! Compare!Iraqi marja, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, in his modest house and attire.With all that said, a better comparison could be between Shia Islam and Christianity in general. Both sects as well as the Sufis among Muslims, attach a very lofty cosmic and/or spiritual importance to their messenger or their saints and have an understanding of religion which is much more esoteric and mystical than merely legalistic and ritualistic. In that sense Shia-Sunni divide is comparable to Christian-Jewish divide, but without Shias rejecting religious law as was the case with Paulian Christianity. Shias and Sufis rather believe one should complete religious faith with esoteric beliefs among which is the concept of wilaya, spiritual love for the Prophet and the Imams and ultimately all mankind, comparable to Christian doctrine of universal love for Jesus, believers and gentiles.This shared esotericism—with similarities sometimes running down to very concrete and particular doctrines— as well as their shared emphasis on spiritual or cosmic love provide a basis, I envision, for future historical convergence between Shia/Sufi Muslims and Christians in the End Time, with the Sunni majority following suit after these perennial esoteric truths underlying all major religions are established and recognized by all believers, but with the more bigoted followers of the barren Salafi theology probably embarking on futile suicidal backlash by the time!However, until then the Christian deification of Jesus and the widespread of Islamophobia among them keep us irreconcilably divided! I think I can end now but by some artistic bounties!Ascensions of Jesus and MuhammadThe joint second coming of Mahdi and Jesus as envisioned by a pro-IRI Shia artist. Jesus is following Mahdi’s lead along with other iconic Shia martyrs.

I apologize beforehand for any blunt mistakes of various forms due to the lack of editing on my part.Man who adorneth Modernism and revileth nigh all thereafter. Not necessarily my preferred era, nor the poet, yet both enjoy my unique adoration.This will be a slightly longer answer, in which I will gently touch the views of Ezra Pound, including philosophy, which can include a rather larger life-perspective in loose terms, therefore, I shall implicate literary views, religion and occultism, beliefs and biographical changes, as in radical shifts in his views during selected years. Due to the nature of these things, at times offensive and open to interpretation and partisan revision, I may offer my takes on it. Mind, I shall offer my reasons, and I cannot stress this enough, his views presented here are inherently blemished by my colour-prism, and as such I may tread too lightly on certain topics and be too harsh or faithful with others. Particular issues my veer me off-topics, either as a pointless divergence on my part, or more positively, to offer some background, more explanation, or alternative mindset. I shall also say I am not known for coherency, from one bud to the other. —-—— From Notes for CXVII ET SEQ, the capstone of my love for verse.EconomicsPoliticsReligion & Occultism & MysticismAmas ut facias pulchram.ECONOMICS“In the gap between Price values and Income is enough gunpowder to blow up every democratic parliament."— A. R. OrageMoney as Historical development and first appearances in his early troubadour poetry. Poetics → EconomicsSocial CreditPerishable currency & Miscellaneous"Octave" marks what is to my knowledge the first occurrence of the term "usury" in Pound's poetry; the manner in which it dramatizes poetic utterance as a medium of exchange is quite characteristic of much of Pound's early work in the troubadour mode. The Lady's precious attributes (symbolized by gold and silver) are exchanged for (or repaid by) the poet's song, which remits the interest or the "golden usuries" that "her beauty earns as but just increment"-just as the sustained metaphorical structure of the poem produces a series of tropic exchanges between the aesthetic, the erotic, and the economic. ( In Pound We Trust: The Economy of Poetry/ The Poetry of Economics, Sieburth )Most of what follows is drawn from Eugene Vance, Professor Emeritus, French, Comparative Literature, and Comparative Religion, and the relations between troubadour lyrics and early capitalism.Metaphorized exchange of amorous and erotic to economic, is, perhaps surprisingly, quite a common feature of courtly love. Many examples can be found in Pound´s early verse, where the poem can be viewed as, perchance as a contract, pledge, pact, or a covenant between the courtier and the Lady, in which the poem serves both as a medium of conveyance, a manifestation of the covenant, and a measure of value, where its aesthetic excellence denotes the factor of courting. If I use Vance´s term, there is a fundamental tension within, where the aristocratic liberality and love as purity, elevated above other emotions, battles earthy notion of a love poem serving as monetary transaction, and as such, not love, but profit becomes primary motif. As the poem becomes such an object, so does the poet. ( This notion of art for money and art in service of money is arguably one of the important notions that constitute Pound´s world-view and relations throughout his life. ) Thus the poem converts into "a fetishism of verbal signs whose economy depend[s] upon the poet's ability to sustain the body of the poem as a serious rival for the feminine object of desire whose absence the poem celebrates” - “ In other words, the object of the poet's desire is less the Lady than that which he can make of her, be it song, image, idea, or (in the etymological sense of facere) fetish.”I myself am no subscriber to Freud, and would pick Jung any day of the week, his influence, however, is remarkable;"All art begins in the physical discontent (or torture) of loneliness and partiality. It is to fill this lack that man first spun shapes out of the void. And with the intensity of this longing gradually came unto him power, power over the essences of the dawn, over the filaments of light and the warp of melody".To take into account later rabid rancor against putrid usury, the symbolism of early verse is especially important, as it plays in stark contrast. The element of compensation, gold, a universal signifier of homogeneity between mind and body, objects and subject and so forth, an alchemical idealization serving as a frictionless lubricant between states, without chance of degradation. ( Gold - more about esoterism, alchemy and occultism later. )Almost ironic, such inflation would Pound later voicefully denounce. The glamour without ende, rhetorical expansion resulting in impotence of words, both as singular or in phrases, which results, to later Pound, in reactionless sterility. Repetitive and excessive breading of words at the end renders them ineffective. Fetishistic creation ex nihilo - usury.As expected, later poetics are concentrated on the means of direct exchange between the subject and the object, starting with the imagisme.Direct treatment of the "thing", whether subjective or objective.To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome."As to Twentieth-century poetry ... it will be harder and saner ... 'nearer the bone'. It will be as much like granite as it can be ... It will not try to seem forcible by rhetorical din, and luxurious riot. We will have fewer painted adjectives impeding the shock and stroke of it.... I want it austere, direct, free from emotional slither.”Certain parallels, like economics and poetic method, are of vital importance. Similar shift happens with implementation of occultism, which does not die off, but rather transforms. There is some profound interconnectivity that Pound sees in essentially all things essential.Here, the phrases like "take a chisel and cut away all the stone you don't want” and "surgeon's knife of Fascism” that is used to terminate all intermediate, i.e those unnecessary - Jews and gold.Same goes with Vorticism:"Emotion seizing upon some external scene or action carries it intact to the mind; and that vortex purges it of all save the essential or dominant or dramatic qualities, and it emerges like the external original.”By now some may ask why do I focus on poetics, not economics. They both, in the centre, inhabit the same idea;Jacques Derrida observes [in "White Mythology"] that usury, or usure, carries contrasting and simultaneous meanings. Usury is a using up, the erosion or effacement of the inscription on the face of the coin, the loss of the coin's value. Usury also means the supplementary product of a capital, the redemption of loss, surplus value of all sorts. The term usury thus denotes the unity and simultaneity of loss and profit. There is also a "systematic tie" between usury and the operations of language, a tie which manifests itself "whenever the theme of metaphor is privileged."Insufficient attention or erring portrayal, Pound renders economy of art to economy of market, although in certain points he loudly warns and seeks to accomplish complete dissociation between the two, he eventually merges them.By and large, Pound's early Cantos sustain this divorce between aesthetic and erotic communion on the one hand and monetary exchange on the other. And, significantly enough, it is gold, metonym of the transcendent fire of the sun, that most powerfully figures the pure ideality of divine or poetic vision in these initial Cantos-whether it be Circe in her "golden girdles," "bearing the golden bough of Argicida" (1:5), Danac awaiting "the golden rain" (4:16), or the work of the artist "weaving with points of gold" (5:17). As Jean-Michel Rabat (from whom I borrow these examples) points out, not until Canto 26, with the introduction of golden forks to the Doge's table ("bringing in, thus, the vice of luxuria") does gold begin to acquire unmistakably malevolent connotations. No longer an emblem of the luminous, ethereal fluidity of the nous ("gold, gold, a sheaf of hair"-4:14), gold increasingly takes on the inert weight of reified matter and is assimilated into the subterranean (or anal) phantasmagoria of the Hell Cantos.As they progress [ The Cantos ], the old & wise reflects and notices the deterioration, perceives the defect, and the decline in confidence and lost transparency emerges with the very thing it wishes to disavow - mediated exchange both in poetics and economics."It is an outrage that the owner of one commodity can not exchange it with someone possessing another, without being impeded or taxed by a third party holding a monopoly over some third substance or controlling some convention, regardless of what it be called.” ( Quoted in Stock, The Life of Ezra Pound, p. 322 )"History, as seen by a Monetary Economist, is a continuous struggle between producers and those who try to make a living by inserting a false system of book-keeping between the producers and their just recompense.”Before I turn to the Social Credit, an interesting section that may shed some light:Accordingly, one of Pound's favorite nostrums from 1934 on involved the "stamp scrip" currency proposed by the German monetarist Silvio Gesell. Gesell's Schwundgeld (literally "shrinking" or "disappearing" money) was a form of paper money to which a stamp (or tax) representing one percent of its face value would have to be affixed every month by the possessor of the bill. Pound calls stamp scrip "counter-usury" or money that bears "negative interest" because it is impossible to hoard it (or to make a profit off time): the currency loses value every month it lies idle or unspent, and after one hundred months becomes utterly worthless. Whether or not stamp scrip would actually accelerate the velocity of money in circulation or provide an efficient means of taxation remains open to question. (Pound, at any rate, claimed to have seen the scheme work in the small Austrian town of Worgl.) More interesting than its feasibility, however, is the very idea of money embodied by stamp scrip. The attraction of a self-liquidating or self-castrating currency (stamp scrip, Pound noted, was money that "eats up its own tail” - [ ouroboros - more about occultism later ] indicates the extent to which he desires to dematerialize or disembody the medium of exchange, to reduce it to an evanescent mark or trace, to insure that the code or scrip-ture of money will not take precedence over those messages (or goods) it is meant to convey.Money as such would be an economical manifestation of his poetics, and above all else natural, with perishability, velocity, cyclicity,… "The natural object is always the adequate symbol” - one of the tenets of imagism, money in such a from would serve as an adequate symbol - etymological “equal to” - to its object of representation.Another one of interesting takes is his differentiation of goods, where he also suggest different monetary means for different categories of goods;1. Transient: fresh vegetables luxuries jerry-built houses fake art, pseudo books battleships.2. Durable: well constructed buildings, roads, public works, canals, intelligent afforestation.3. Permanent: scientific discoveries works of art classicsDifferentiation would break up the monopoly of one currency ( gold at the time ) & "various degrees of durability ... could conceivably (but very cumbrously) be each represented by money that should melt at parallel rate". Also, one notes Pound strict adherence to what he perceives as a “natural dynamics”, where a system molds and adopts to greater efficiency, and does not maintain a strict set of axioms. The question is what aggregates to this Natura, which can be encountered notably in The Cantos. — All those who have read them surely remember the phrase Contra Naturam.M. Foucault:"The essential problem of Classical thought lay in the relations between name and order: how to discover a nomenclature that would be a taxonomy, or again, how to establish a system of signs that would be transparent to the continuity of being."Pertaining both to money and language - Pound´s interest in Chinese ideograms as ideal representations.Peirce's Theory of SignsIcons - things that stand for something because it resembles itIndices - sings that possess a real connection with the objectSymbols - depend neither on resemblance nor on contiguity, but on "mental association or habit," that is, on social convention.The latter emerges much later in Pound´s poetics, and takes the form of logopoeia, beside phanopoeia or melopoeia. This lack of multiplicity in early theories results in partial elimination of psyche, both individually and historically, and conveniently stations “Natura” , in effect overlooking historical and social conditions of creation and exchange. Similarly, same deficiency can be seen in monetary theories.Paradoxically, his enthusiasm for ideograms, not only possess natural connection to the object, but also materially manifest that for which they stand. Yet, if we transfer the same characteristic to monetary sphere, where an ideogram results in a reservoir, " a treasury of stable wisdom, an arsenal of live thought" ( Nicholls, Politics, Economics and Writing, p. 153. ) - meaning, an idolized form of concentrated clogging. The thing he is allergic too. This also is the nature of his criticism of Marx, through misreading: "Endowing money with properties of a quasi-religious nature," adding that "there was even the concept of energy being 'concentrated in money,' as if one were speaking of the divine quality of consecrated bread”.2. Social Credit“In the gap between Price values and Income is enough gunpowder to blow up every democratic parliament." — If I return to the original quotation, Social Credit, in its center, aims to eliminate precisely this ( Similar to Marx - surplus value ). Horrid simplification; “The state makes up the difference between the number of available goods and the amount of available money or credit by distributing a mixture of subsidies to industry and national dividends to citizens. The money or credit thus created by the state will in turn "bridge" the "gap," fill in the widening "gulf," and restore to circulation the purchasing power that was somehow "sucked up, or absorbed or caused to disappear" by the black magic of Usury or the legerdemain of accounting-the metaphors of castration that haunt Pound's economics have been explored at length by Casillo and Alan Durant.” —-Pound´s turn to Fascism is the ultimately the result “to narrow the gap”, as it renders impossible "to collect ... interest on money that represents nothing at all, money that is just FLIGHT of an airy fancy” and functions as "the representation of something solid and deliverable, since it is not merely a sign of abstract gold but rather a certificate of available goods or a credit slip signifying work done for the state”.A + B Theorem, from THE ECONOMIC ETHICS OF EZRA POUND, A. Lanteri:In all of its simplicity, the theorem states that every factory either makes payments to (A) individuals, in the form of wages, salaries, and dividends or (B) organizations, in the form of bank charges, raw materials, and other production costs. B payments are made at an early stage of the production process so that, by the time the final product reaches the market, these payment will have been spent and the only purchasing power available will be A. In order to cover all of its costs, however, a factory must sell its products at a price higher than A + B. Therefore, at any given time, there will be goods on the market for a value larger than A + B. As said, however, the outstanding purchasing power will be only A and so it will prove insufficient to clear out the all of the production. Douglas (1935) lists “at least five causes” for the deficiency of purchasing power:1) Money profits collected from the public (interest is profit on an intangible); 2) Savings; i.e., mere abstention from buying; 3) Investment of savings in new works, which create a new cost without fresh purchasing power; 4) Difference of circuit velocity between cost liquidation and price creation which results in charges being carried over into prices from a previous cost accountancy cycle. Practically all plant charges are of this nature, and all payments for material brought in from a previous wage cycle are of the same nature; 5) Deflation; i.e., sale of securities by banks and recall of loans.According to Douglas, the capitalistic productive process is discontinuous and it creates a shortage of resources to purchase all the goods. To avoid the collapse of the entire economy, some system has to be devised that makes A incomes sufficient to purchase all the commodities. Exports may work, but only as a temporary and local solution. Failing exports, more money need be invested in additional future production so that it can be paid out in the present as salaries and wages. In Douglas’ view, capitalism has an endemic deficiency of purchasing power, and so it has an inherent drive to economic growth (Hutchinson and Burkitt 1999). Such growth must be stimulated by bank credit.During a speech at the Oslo Merchants Club, he recounted how after the founding of the Bank of England (A.D. 1694) world debt had started growing. During the 17th century it increased by 47 percent, during the 18th century it increased by 466 percent, and by the end of the 19th century it had increased by 12,000 percent. According to Douglas (1935), this happened “in spite of the numerous repudiations of debt, the writing down of debts which takes place with every bankruptcy, and other methods used to write off debts and start again”. Moreover, this had happened not in spite of the economic growth of those centuries, but – quite surprisingly – because of it.The theory is today, of course, debunked, and the fallacy in clearly exposed. ( Breit and Elzinga 1980 ). However, his recognition of the importance of aggregate demand should not be discounted. J.M. Keynes, among others, acknowledged it; along with Gesell and Karl Marx – Douglas had understood “the outstanding problem of our economic system – that of Effective Demand”.Douglas, no matter how flawed the system he built may be, was driven by similar incentive as Pound; “to question the necessity for economic growth, while seeking reasons for the failure of industrial technology to deliver a comfortable lifestyle for all, free from long hours of labour and perpetual insecurity.”During the economic growth, if the money supply is not increased, the prices drop as the currency becomes more valuable, therefore the money supply should increase for the prices to remain stable. There is only the question who should regulate the money supply, as currently, privately owned banks create – and so also possess – the newly created money. It truly gets problematic when we speak of public debt, where the taxpayers have to cover the loans and interest to private entities, while the government could issue its own credit. Douglas argues for the transition of legal and moral rights to create money from private to public, to the community. Pound falls quite squarely with the same opposition, and with great recurrence quotes William Paterson, a co-founder of the Bank of England, to whom he attributed: “The bank [of England] has the benefit of interest on all moneys it has created out of nothing.” As such, net benefits of expansion and development belong to the community, not the banks or other private entities. And a portion of necessary created new money should be equally divided among the citizen, and the remains, to counter inflation, redeployed for a “debate” program, - “which amounts to a system of subsidies to the producers of goods and services – in order to keep prices low.““The effect will be a drop in the price level, while at the same time the producer and the business man will not be losing money. They will enjoy the dividends and the increase in trade which comes from the ability to charge lower prices. They will not lose money as they would if they had to lower prices without the aid of the creation of national credit.” (Douglas 1935)3. Perishable currencyUnification of Social credit and perishable currency based on Gesell’s proposal, that is, stamp scrip, - “it is a currency whose nominal value must be upheld by purchasing a stamp and attaching it to the bills. The stamps are due on fixed dates and in fixed amounts. This way, the holders of banknotes end up paying a tax on currency. In order to avoid paying the stamps, bills holders must spend (or deposit) their money – and in this way, they promote economic activity.” ( THE ECONOMIC ETHICS OF EZRA POUND, Lanteri )The main difference is, it has to be circulated and engaged, thus cannot be passively hoarded, as the money itself is subjected to periodical taxation. Keynes, beside some problems or unanswered questions, like that of of liquidity-preference and liquidity-premium, - “if currency notes were to be deprived of their liquidity-premium by the stamping system, a long series of substitutes would step into their shoes — bank-money, debts at call, foreign money, jewellery and the precious metals generally, and so forth.” With time, alternative means of payments would arise which would be needed to be suppressed.- Otherwise, sound.Another thing it boosts is the velocity of circulation; since the total amount of money available in an economy is lower than the value of the goods and services exchanged in a given period of time, money has to change hands several times. The speed at which this change takes place is the velocity of circulation of money. So, if everyone hangs on to money, velocity of circulation is lower, and this causes a decline in economic activity. During economic slowdowns, velocity drops dramatically, as the proportion of money that is kept in storage tends to increase.Ultimately, the notion of perishability has one great vulnerability, that it is perishable. It opposes the long standing tradition of Aristotle, and Locke, to name two giants.Not that Pound propagated the idea fiercely, he looked at it as a means of education or enlightenment, that would make “the banking fraud would stand exposed”. It is sound and convenient way to expose interests, and bury them.This short overview only further shed light to the problem that Pound was not an economist, but a humanist of which economy was interest due to the moral and cultural importance. However, he is one of the rare individuals who integrated two competing views, Social Credit and stamps, into one system.“Oh, blessed money which yieldeth sweete and profitable drinke for mankinde, and preserveth the possessors thereof free from the hellish pestilence of avarice because it cannot be long kept or hid underground” .( Pedro Martir Anghiera, On the New World, 1530 )Man´s devotion to art was nigh unparalleled;Yet fierce and unyielding;POLITICS - “Liberty is not a right, but a duty.”Firstly, I will let him speak a few important words you shan't forget;Here we meet the man at his lowest, radio broadcasts.The disgust reached a peak after the Great Depression, which was not a solely a fascist attitude, and the meltdown of both economical and political ideas followed in the 30s. The existing vitriol against Western economy, banking & bankers, financiers & usurers ( He almost equated with the Jews ) only augmented. It should also be mentioned that he lost two of his best friends during the war, for which he blamed the above mentioned, T. E. Hulme and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Being a sensitive man, albeit he might not seems so, it took a great toll on him and shifted his occupation, one of the reasons surely to never let such a thing happen. Well, I shall lose no words here… Sad what cameth of it!From Hugh Selwyn MauberleyIVThese fought in any case,and some believing pro domo, in any case...Some quick to arm,some for adventure,some from fear of weakness,some from fear of censure,some for love of slaughter, in imagination,learning later ...some in fear, learning love of slaughter;Died some pro patria, non dulce non et decor” ...walked eye-deep in hellbelieving in old men's lies, then unbelievingcame home, home to a lie,home to many deceits,home to old lies and new infamy;usury age-old and age-thickand liars in public places.Daring as never before, wastage as never before.Young blood and high blood,fair cheeks, and fine bodies;fortitude as never beforefrankness as never before,disillusions as never told in the old days,hysterias, trench confessions,laughter out of dead bellies.VThere died a myriad,And of the best, among them,For an old bitch gone in the teeth,For a botched civilization.Charm, smiling at the good mouth,Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,For two gross of broken statues,For a few thousand battered books.Fascism, a brewage of quasi left-wing egalitarianism and right-wing authoritarianism certainly brought new dimensions to authority and community. G. Stein once said about Pound: “A village explainer. Excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not." The perimeter of his village was not bush-line or anything similar, but a zone where one idea ended and the other begun. He certainly was deluded and prejudiced, and he saw a fascism, as nazism, democratic authoritarianism, that is, leaders were the men of the people, will of the people, almost a divine embodiment of it. The idea was hardly new, the term volonté générale, ( Rousseau ), the general will, which was used a good hundred years before during the French Revolution, used akin seeds.Pound was in search for a political thought, like many other intellectuals, if I use the term, that would see the value of European cultural heritage and tradition in harmony with the slogan “Make it new”, be open to Oriental influx ( India, China, Japan - the latter two can encompass a whole chapter when it comes to influence and so forth ) and provide the aspirations of workers and peasants for economic justice and flourishment. God forfend, Fascism came the closest for him.1) a generalized unhappiness over the destruction of the social bonds that traditionally joined men and women together and joined both to the soil,2) a vigorous protest against the inability of the Western nations to end unemployment and make full use of their productive capabilities,3) a rejection of the Marxist theory that economic distress results from the attempt of capital to preserve its control over labor, and of the Marxist belief that only in a classless society will poverty and unemployment disappear,4) an attempt to find in the nation-state an alternative to the socialist concept of the working class, as a model of an organic community,5) support for the use of the full power of the state to stimulate economic development, to end unemployment, and to ensure that the basic needs of people for food, shelter, and clothing are satisfied,6) a cult of the Great Leader who incarnates the nation and whose indomitable will carries the nation forward toward its destiny,His total dismissal of arbitrary lines of ideology can be once again demonstrated:At the time, he still hoped to win over the left, and to implement the ideas of Social Credit. No matter how we turn, Fascism was at the time socially progressive, implementing various reforms, such as: ( To quote Pound )Yet even here the political naïveté got the better of him, thinking that Fascism turned from “productionism to distributivism”.Odon Por, and the two books, Guilds and Cooperatives in Italy and Fascism were another great influence. If I borrow two short sections before a commentary:The benefits of Corporate state and Unions, where each worker is represented by a man of his own profession & trade - experience, as such it cannot fall into the same gutter where a man is represented by professional politician. British Guild movement and syndicalism as two corollaries or akin with origin, yet there is one important difference with its implementation in Italy, — Mussolini was certainly influenced and had studied Georges Sorel and syndicalism — at the end, unions were voiceless and subordinate to the political party, which in practice rendered them ineffective, well, almost, they served as masquerade.By the end of 30s, he already modified and adopted Douglasian liberalism to Fascism:On a more general note henceforth:The extent to which you can even delegate power is probably limited by laws as definite as those which govern the strength of current you can send through an electric wire of given thickness and texture.Power, customs exist prior to the will of the people, and order is inherent, or rediscovered, rather than obtained. Pound rejected the notion of “contract theory” for various reasons. Society is a product of deliberate fabrication, and here a parallel to economics can be drawn, and a same suspicion with money created ex nihilo, or in political theory, contract and order ex nihilo. Natural state of society counters the artificial state of contract. Just government - peace, order, egalitarianism - take precedence over liberty ( Traditional conservative thought ). Active political participation is necessary and is a moral obligation, not for a struggle to power, as authority is not the exercise of some “arbitrary force”, but a tradition of political structure producing stability, without the need of exercising force.The structure wielding force is therefore indirect, the shift from early liberal to later fascist guild system is remarkable, but even there, guilds serve as a indirect - intermediary objects. Pound is here much closer to American Enlightenment ( They occur frequently in his writings, even radio broadcasts ), where the right to rule and structure is extracted by culture, not by power. That is, the knowledge of ruling is mediated in history, culture, law, customs,…Authoritarian state that rose, in Pound´s view, cannot develop from “self-generating system”, as such systems are based on transcendence of such pesky “self-sustained systems”. The right to rule thus cannot originate in a person and his charisma ( Weber´s theory ), but in which those closely and actively engage with historical and customary knowledge and language, the two mediators of continuity of tradition, which in turn generate a climate of naturalness and confidence - legitimize the rule.Tradition and custom opposed ideology, a body of new-born abstraction loosely assimilated or completely baseless to historical continuity. “Government has undergone revolution of modus and instrument. Ideologies float over this process. Emotions, appetites, are focussed into political process.” ( E. Pound ) If ideologies are baseless and factitious abstractions, what about the process and knowledge? If we transform two notions, that of technical and practical knowledge ( See Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism and politics, 1947 )( technical - learned by heart and applied mechanically with logic ; practical - can not be taught nor learned, only imparted or acquired ) through Poundian lenses and made less extreme, that through chaotic, that is, non-rationalistic method with false or twisted historical documentation might render the concreteness and naturality to that which has been ideological. In doing so, it has the power to liquefy the solid political order only to have it reappear as an ideology of concrete form with the mark of naturality. —- Any revolution or tumultuous period has gone though that ( English civil war, French Revolution, 20. century )Shift in politics and pretending of natural ethics only relieves one ideology for the other. From Canto XXXVI:Authority comes from right reason, never the other way on.( When I get around, I will make a series - close reading of the Cantos - because there is much treasure in those lines )Not only is the truth of a given idea measured by the degree and celerity wherewith it goes into action, but a very distinct component of truth remains ungrasped by the non-participant in the action.And this statement is at diametric remove from gross pragmatism that cheapens or accepts the “pragmatic pig of a world”.As much as this might seem ironic and false, now, years later, looking back, Pound spent his political activity battling what he thought of as Ideology. As opposed to tradition, beside epistemological difference, ideologies are immaterial ideas - representations, and as such unnatural. They induce unnatural behavior and rule. - Yet if we today evaluate, most would say Pound was the most ideological of them all, both in politics as in literature. His circular empiricism of material - natural and obvious transcendence - that is, with almost self-evident manifestation, ultimately rendered him blind to his own shortcomings.I do not know how much of Giovanni Gentile has Pound read, as he disliked formal and academic philosophy, but he was, at least superficially, acquainted with his ideas, and both shared intellectual contempt for “abstractions”.Fascism is not an ideology [ Pound would agree, or did agree ], it is not a closed system, and it is not really even a programme, if by programme one means a plan conceived in advance and projected into the future… Fascism is a spiritual attitude rather than a fixed content of thought [ dogma ]. ( Gentile )It is hard to understand the revolutionary fervor Pound experienced:“The lira was based on the word of the Duce. For me a much more secure basis than other people´s gold.”Word - graspable and real - language - opposed the ill-used abstractions of money.Mussolini´s words do not need footnotes, so clear are they in letter and spirit; they run straight and engrave themselves on the soul and heart of the reader as vivid human truths.Not Pound´s quote, but we can easily imagine it being said by him. This is the essence of Pound´s poetry as well, or at least how he has seen it, or what he wished to accomplish. The Cantos - the most complex of the poems - without notes…This was not even a pebble of Pound´s politics and the climate of the time.3. Religion & Occultism & Mysticism“The images of the gods move the soul to contemplation and preserve the tradition of the un­divided light.”Influenced by G.R.S. Mead, A.R. Orage, J. Theobalt, A. Upward, Olivia and Dorothy Shakespeare, and W. B. Yeats ( He lived with him, and was his secretary )( From Canto LXXXIII )As Kenner said about Pound; ” To see gods was a way to see nature, not to use an antique way of talking.”I believe in a sort of permanent basis in humanity, that is to say, I believe that Greek myth arose when someone having passed through delightful psychic experience tried to communicate it to others and found it necessary to screen himself from persecution. Speaking aesthetically, the myths are explications of mood: you may stop there, or you may probe deeper. Certain it is that these myths are only intelligible in a vivid and glittering sense to those people to whom they occur. I know, I mean, one man who understands Persephone and Demeter, and one who understands the Laurel, and another who has, I should say, met Artemis. These things are for them real. ( Pound, Psychology and Troubadours )Pound interest in occultism is nowhere near as researched and popular as his trodden politics. His attitude was rather ambivalent at best, and crossed out at the start some practices as wacky and useless:My stay in Stone Cottage will not be in the least profitable. I detest the country. Yeats will amuse me part of the time and bore me to death with psychical research the rest. I regard the visit as a duty to posterity.He disliked theurgy, psychical research and spiritualism, and Yeats at the time actively pursued practical magic and before mentioned theurgy. Pound was a by-stander, listener and learner, but was never proactively engaged with any of the groups. And interesting account of one of the members, W. T. Horton:I was & am very sorry for Ezra because beneath all his many wrappings I see the Real Man who sorrows deeply over the antics & perverse lucubrations of his distracted charge. Watching & listening to Ezra I could see, as it were, a something slimy crawling over everything that is beautiful & noble & of good report & leaving behind him an unquestionably glittering but at the same time foul track of slime. I am sorry for him because of what he must go through, for Love-in-Death is approaching who will open his eves & those of his Moon & other satellites.What is astonishing is that you do not see what Ezra is to you . . . .Ezra was your guest last Monday as were others so I did not think it right & proper to say anything but at same time I cannot allow my attitude to be mistaken. I gather from you that one cannot be a Poet & a Hero; in other words to be a Hero you must be a Zero. Well I prefer the Heroic Zero to the Olympian Poet on his sham Olympus . . . .What you or Ezra or anyone else believes or says matters not one tittle to me but I do know we are all in the hands of the Living God & sudden & quick & drastic will be the Event.I have a word for Mrs Shakespear. Sundrv of her accounts are being made up. the balance is being struck-she will soon know on which side it is to be.Ezra was not welcomed by some of the regulars of London occult circles, neither did he wished to be, as he saw most of them as charlatans and tricksters.But if one reads the Cantos, the esoteric tradition and influences are present. There is a fine line between hogwash and a real thing. Section of a letter, correspondence with Dorothy Shakespear:. . . What you mean by symbolism? Do you mean real symbolism, Cabala, genesis of symbols, rise of picture language, etc. or the aesthetic <symbology> symbolism of Villiers de 1'Isle Adam, and that Arthur Symons wrote a book [Svmbolist Movement in Literature] about--the literary movement? At any rate begin on the "Comte de Gabalis," anonymous and should be in catalogue under "Comte de Gabalis." Then you might try the Grimoire of Pope Honorius (IIIrd I think).There's a dictionary of symbols, but I think it immoral. I mean that I think a superficial acquaintance with the sort of shallow, conventional, or attributed meaning of a lot of symbols weakens--damnably, the power of receiving an energized symbol. I mean a symbol appearing in a vision has a certain richness and power of energizing joy--whereas if the supposed meaning of a symbol is familiar it has no more force, or interest of power of suggestion than any other word, or than a synonym in some other language.Then there are those Egyptian language books, but O.S. [Olivia Shakespear] has 'em so they're no use. De Gabalis (first part only) is amusing. Ennemoser's History Of Magic may have something in it--Then there are "Les Symbolistesl'-- french from MallarmC, de 1'Isle Adam, etc. to [Remy] De Gourmont, which is another story.It is quite obvious, however, that the occult was in service of his poetics, of immediacy, as opposed to Yeats aimless imaginative meanderings, which necessarily took away science - exactness - method - from arts, poetry,…Pound was genuinely religious, he thought of Divine Energy as a real thing, a constituent mode of reality. He recognized the importance of remembrance and continuity of divine tradition, the mixture of mystical and cultural. Across different cultures is an archetypal image, common to all human - divine encounters. He draws heavily from Greek, Roman, Chinese, Early Christian theology and Gnosticism.Gods float in the azure air,Bright gods and Tuscan, back before dew was shed.Light: and the first light, before ever dew was fallen.Panisks, and from the oak, dryas,And from the apple, madid,Through all the wood, and the leaves are full of voices,A-whisper, and the clouds bowe over the lake,And there are gods upon them, … ( Canto III, line 10→ )And From Canto LXXXI, line 520→He respected & adorned so many Gods from various traditions one can safely call him a Pagan, although not in etymological sense - pagus - village. In this sense he is very much in line with Maximus of Tyre;“If Greeks are stirred to the remembrance of God by the art of Phidias, or the Egyptians by paying worship to animals, or others by a river, or others by fire, I will not quarrel with their differences. Only let them know, let them love, let them remem­ber.”Images are the mediator of the divine experiences, and theirs contemplation. This can be seen as one of the reasons for his hostility towards dogmatic theological and philosophical abstractions, as they are baseless, of sorts - without image.“Tradition inheres . . . in the images of the gods, and gets lost in dogmatic definitions.”From there also sprouts his disagreements with major institutionalized religions, Christianity and the Church, as, beside dogmatism and adherence to scripture, seek monopoly and exclusive dominion over various other traditions. Thus it is no surprise Pound does not see history linearly and a stomp of progress, and beside empirical disagreement , there is the existence of the divine, and a society is measured by the attunement with it.( From Canto XIII )Confucius, another important figure.I should also note - Pound vehemently defied novelty for its own sake, and that it should arise from the past and tradition. Pound was, among the modernist, the most devoted student of the past. English Anglo-Saxon poetry - Made anew, French Troubadour poetry, Sestina form, modernized and imagized translation, Chinese poetry and translations, and so forth. There is much more to be said, Alas. —I am tired.From Canto LI:[ ( Pound´s Occult education ) ]More about Pound:Jan Špenko's answer to Can you write an answer, in prose or verse, that illuminates and analyzes the relationship of sound to sense? If you choose to write verse, it must perform what it teaches — as, e.g., Coleridge does in his “Metrical Feet” (see link).