I haven't gotten very far in Non-Euclidian yet, but I have gotten far enough to notice that the editors chose many pieces written early in RAW's writing career. RAW himself, with some exceptions, did not use much of his early work when he was alive and was selecting the pieces for his own anthologies. He sometimes disparaged his early work, although I also wonder if he did not have easy access to much of it.
In any event, the use of early pieces in A Non-Euclidian Perspective means that the reader gets a look at how RAW's writing style and political thought evolved during his career. Some of those early pieces are not really my favorite bits of RAW writing, but I did very much like "Ezra Pound and his Admirers," where RAW confronts his admiration of Pound and his loathing for his politics:
"Two statements which I am arrogant enough to call 'facts' must be placed on record in any intelligent discussion of Pound: (1) He is a great poet and a great thinker; (2) He has deliberately and consistently support fascism, anti-Semitism and other vicious systems and attitudes for 30 years now, and continues to do so ... Placed together, those facts make a paradox which is both tragic and highly alarming. Most of us prefer not to face that paradox, and we reduce Pound to one part of it and ignore the other part."
Later:
"To see Pound as he is -- a man of genius and goodwill, of folly and rage, of love and integrity and hatred and dishonesty -- is to admit that such contradictions can exist in the human personality. That is not a comfortable thought -- it is especially uncomfortable to those of us who are, like Pound, idealists intent on changing the world -- so we prefer to brush it aside and go on playing our life-myth that the universe is one big Western Movie where the 'good guys' (us) are fighting the 'bad guys' (our enemies.)"
I am grateful to the editors for getting this book assembled, so I could read this piece and the other pieces.
Related: Substack from Michael Johnson: "Ezra Pound, RAW and The 'Two Cultures'."
2 comments:
I found it a happy coincidance that both this volume of RAW's collected political essays and the Bob Shea compendium came out the same year, as both books feature writings on anarchism from slightly different perspectives.
For instance, Robert Shea has a piece on Ayn Rand called 'Ayn Rand is Still at Work', while Wilson has one titled 'Objections to Objectivism'.
Both authors aknowledge her influence as a political thinker in their younger years (Shea even praises her as a fiction writer), but also go on to explain why ultimately they moved on.
I found it interesting to compare how the two Illuminatus! authors tackle similar subjects.
I'm hoping that's one of the appeals of the Shea book, getting the chance to learn about "Illuminatus!" by hearing from both authors.
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