A lot of Yeses to both your notes, Lawrence.
One sort-of-No; I seem to recall from(among others) a Guy Davenport essay on Pound, that he did say that his anti-Semitism had been a mistake, something learned early on the US plains, & I never quit understood how so cosmopolitan mind had stuck in that groove. The thing so many of us`, in my generation anyway (I think), could not ignore was how important his poetics proved to our own development as writers.
As to both the Tories & Brexit there, & Trump next door to us in Canada, every day brings more news of just how much damage both are doing to their countries. So, yes, we fight back however we can…
Doug
> On Sep 12, 2017, at 9:20 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> gosh must be tricky to know what our own prejudices are (-esp as in my
> case I do not meet many people these days)
>
> It helps clear thinking to meet others, yes, especially if they do not
> share one's assumptions
> these exchanges have been useful in that regard, I think
>
>> and I suppose we rationalise prejudices them
> I am sure that we do
>
>> perhaps not all right wing Tories are bad ???:-) or neo Nazi's and as for
> Trump eek
> depends what we mean by 'bad'
> they are responsible certainly
>
> I say nothing of other parties. Tories are bad. The individuals may be in
> explicably odd mental places; but their effects are bad for the rest of us.
> Ditto neo-Nazis. Ditto Trump.
> Opposition to them is self-defence.
>
> One hears "It's not my fault; I didn't know" and that can be seen as
> evasive -- I'm thinking of, amongst other things, a man with whom I
> exchanged words a while back when he had said he wanted "England to be
> great again" (England, note, ) I asked him when it had been great
> previously and he said "I don't know. I'm not an historian."
>
> I pointed out the nonsense obtained by putting the 2 statements together
> and he used a well-known phrase.
>
> I persisted and said surely he must know enough from school and he said he
> didn't listen in history lessons because they were boring...
>
> Thus we have an implicit assertion that we may ignore anything which we do
> not find entertaining. I don't accept that.
>
> Tories are bad for us. Deomonstrably. Look at NHS. + the economy. +the
> latest news from my p.o.v. which is to do roadworks in the vicinity of UK's
> most famous ancient monument even though the archaeologists are still
> finding new things about it.
>
> Others may do such damage. Tories always do.
>
> I see no justification for neo-Naziism. Or Trump. (I have listened to many
> explications of the votes for Trump and they are illogical and or evasive)
>
> toodle-oo
>
> L
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> On 12 September 2017 at 11:05, Patrick McManus <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> L thanks -gosh must be tricky to know what our own prejudices are (-esp as
>> in my case I do not meet many people these days)
>>
>> and I suppose we rationalise prejudices them -perhaps not all right wing
>> Tories are bad ???:-) or neo Nazi's and as for Trump eek
>>
>>
>> On 12/09/2017 10:29, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>>
>>> I like benamored
>>> even if it's not in the dictionary
>>> or I assume it's not
>>>
>>> I remember, sort of, Pound's regretting, in his old age, some aspects of
>>> his behaviour -- though not, as I remember, the anti-semitism, more his
>>> spreading his talent too thin
>>>
>>> likewise, Eliot, I think, never retracted
>>>
>>> but... but... not to excuse but
>>>
>>> My father worked when young for a Jewish firm -- this would have been the
>>> 1920s -- fixing their vehicles
>>> and he told me once that, on that experience, Jews were wonderful people
>>> etc etc -- he was explaining to me the meaning and occurrence in his
>>> speech
>>> of some Yiddish phrase that he'd picked up; and then maybe a decade or
>>> more
>>> later when I mentioned that I was going to Poland for the summer (70s)
>>> asking somewhat suspiciously "Poland... aren't they all Jewish there"...
>>>
>>> I might explain his poor geographical / racial knowledge by saying he left
>>> school at 14 and never went further south and east than Dover (a Londoner:
>>> my mother told me that he once stopped the car at a pub in Devon to buy
>>> cigarettes and went back to her to say he couldn't understand them - they
>>> were all foreigners... He'd never met that accent somehow
>>>
>>> None of that explains the inconsistency
>>>
>>> But... but... I suspect all that wasn't that unusual.... certainly the
>>> contradiction is common still; look at the nonsense that passes for debate
>>> going on in UK now... NB attacks on Eastern Europeans by the
>>> self-righteous
>>> English
>>>
>>> And... My mother -- also an Edwardian birth -- would say "I don't know;
>>> I'm
>>> only a woman" even if she could cope with Devon accents
>>>
>>> And as DHL -- the writer, not the transport company -- has been mentioned,
>>> somewhere he wrote something like having sex with a black woman would make
>>> a man feel dirty... Can't remember where that was; but I remember turning
>>> a
>>> page and stumbling on it and being dumbfounded
>>>
>>> Ignorance... prejudice... oy vey... A London Jewish friend who lived in
>>> Israel for some years, asked me to go with him to a Yiddish film festival.
>>> (That festival was a 'revelation'.) And during our visits he communicated
>>> his belief that Yiddish was a C19 invention made in response to Zionism!
>>>
>>> I told him what I knew and he was a little gobsmacked
>>>
>>> I of course am free of ignorance and prejudice
>>>
>>> L
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>>
>>> On 12 September 2017 at 10:05, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> enamoured, whoops
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 12 Sep 2017 at 5:58 pm, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Yes, that's how I would take it, L. Also even a dickhead may not always
>>>>> have been a dickhead or some gems might emerge despite their dickheadry.
>>>>>
>>>> I
>>>>
>>>>> do recall Larkin's poem about the toad, work, squatting on your life and
>>>>> being benamored of that expression.
>>>>>
>>>>> B
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 12 Sep 2017 at 2:45 PM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]
>>>>>>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't recall reading that; but if I understand it, then sure -- the
>>>>>> writer's writing is more reliable than their commentary
>>>>>>
>>>>>> L
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 12 September 2017 at 04:27, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>>>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I particularly liked having a small discussion about Larkin as a
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> focus.
>>>>
>>>>> So
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I thought I'd throw in something else to discuss - from Poetry Daily's
>>>>>>> Newsletter:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> DH Lawrence’s advice to 'never trust the artist; trust the tale',
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Over to you ...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Andrew
>>>>>>> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
>>>>>>> Books available through Walleah Press
>>>>>>> http://walleahpress.com.au
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Listen. If (UofAPress):
There was the usual amount of corruption, intimidation, and rioting.
Sir Charles Petrie
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