DOI article:
Pound, Ezra: Definitions etc.
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63706#0088
DEFINITION^ etc.
By
EZRA POUND
Circumstance in paranthesis (Der Querschnitt is active), the Mer-
cure de France is senile; all other reviews represent a fixed point
of view; all anglo saxon reviews represent a dead point of view stuffed
with sawdust. Nationalized man is so stupid that only when a nation
is flat on its back will it devote any energy to verbal manifestations, or
their exactitude or vitality.
DEFINITION^
1. A good state is one which impinges least upon the peripheries of
its citizens.
2. The function of the state is to facilitate the traffic, i. e. the circu-
lation of goods, air, water, heat, coal (black or white), power, and even
thought;
and to prevent the citizens from impingeing on each other.
3. The aim of state education has been (historically) to prevent people
from discovering that the classics are worth reading. In this endeavour
it has been almost wholly successful.
4. Politicians: fahrts of the multitude.
Nature of war depends entirely on the state of civilization of the par-
ties contending. Nature of social revolution depends entirely on state
of ignorance and barbarism of elements cast to the TOP.
The only way a nation can render itself safe is by civilizing its neigh-
bors. The duty of an aristocracy is to educate its plebs; failure in this
simple precaution means its own bloody destruction. History presents
no more imbecile a series of spectacles than the conduct of aristocracies.
Without whom civilization is impossible. And after one imbecile lot of
these lepidoptera is destroyed the whole of woodenheaded humanity has
to concentrate its efforts on production of another, lot, equally piffling
and light headed.
ENVO I
And if you speak of Ezra to his ancient friends, now become all of
them editors, and officials, and great sober Times reviewers; say that
you have seen him seated on Mount Athos, weeping that he has lost a
boiled shirt.
*
54
By
EZRA POUND
Circumstance in paranthesis (Der Querschnitt is active), the Mer-
cure de France is senile; all other reviews represent a fixed point
of view; all anglo saxon reviews represent a dead point of view stuffed
with sawdust. Nationalized man is so stupid that only when a nation
is flat on its back will it devote any energy to verbal manifestations, or
their exactitude or vitality.
DEFINITION^
1. A good state is one which impinges least upon the peripheries of
its citizens.
2. The function of the state is to facilitate the traffic, i. e. the circu-
lation of goods, air, water, heat, coal (black or white), power, and even
thought;
and to prevent the citizens from impingeing on each other.
3. The aim of state education has been (historically) to prevent people
from discovering that the classics are worth reading. In this endeavour
it has been almost wholly successful.
4. Politicians: fahrts of the multitude.
Nature of war depends entirely on the state of civilization of the par-
ties contending. Nature of social revolution depends entirely on state
of ignorance and barbarism of elements cast to the TOP.
The only way a nation can render itself safe is by civilizing its neigh-
bors. The duty of an aristocracy is to educate its plebs; failure in this
simple precaution means its own bloody destruction. History presents
no more imbecile a series of spectacles than the conduct of aristocracies.
Without whom civilization is impossible. And after one imbecile lot of
these lepidoptera is destroyed the whole of woodenheaded humanity has
to concentrate its efforts on production of another, lot, equally piffling
and light headed.
ENVO I
And if you speak of Ezra to his ancient friends, now become all of
them editors, and officials, and great sober Times reviewers; say that
you have seen him seated on Mount Athos, weeping that he has lost a
boiled shirt.
*
54