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K'tagogm-m, v. 1, issue 3, September 1945
Page 5
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K'taogm-m 5 TUMBRILLIANTINE A large number of Vanguardists have requests us to published our "rather scorching little article in response to Jim Blish's first Tumbrils" in spite of the fact that we felt that new developments had given us reason to withhold it from the second K!taogm-m, We still do not consider that the viewpoint we held on Blish's politics at the time of writing that article to be today accurate. Consequently we are not inclined to publish the article as is. Nonetheless, with the bravado of the youthful hot-head who leaps before he has acquired his facts, and with a certain mulish fanaticism, Blish rushes into print a "sizzling" retort in the third Tumbrils. With the ancient and decrepit wheels clanking and squeaking, he rushes headlong into a typical Blishian confusion of supposition and fact. First saying that "if (my emphasis) the article was based upon the notion that Epode was a defense of Fascism, then he read that essay with a carelessness which for one of his soi-distant (means "pretended") intellectual integrity verges upon the insolent." Blish follows this with this beaut of a boner: "The remainder of the replies to Epode are guilty of exactly the same carelessness, though hardly the same condescension." What was originally an "if" supposition becomes in the next sentence an accepted fact. This is a typical literary trick of the soi-distant, smart-alecky, pseudo-intellectual. It is also often used by fascists. However, my withdrawn article did not deal with Epode at all. I accepted the advice of Walt Kubilius in the inadvisability of arguing with the chip-on-the-shoulder defender of the unpopular. I felt that Blish was merely striking a pose; that when the Pound case had been drawn out to its last quibbling finish, Blish would set up another unpopular fascist-tarred dummy. (I note that in mentioning the cases of Knut Hamsun and Richard Strauss, he is now preparing to do exactly that.) However, at this point in my withdrawn article I made what Blish heatedly claims to be an error. I charged Blish with being an open advocate of Fascism. I said: "The average man things fascism is a manure pile, philosophically, culturally, socially, historically, militarily, mentally, psychologically, ideologically, and in every other way including photographically (see the national periodicals and newsreels). Since to agree with the common man is to abandon the cloak of aloof superiority, Mr. Blish has haughtily identified himself with the manure pile." I am constrained to withdraw that last remark, because I have been told publicly by Blish that he is not an advocate of Facism--he merely sniffs around the edges and finds defendable merit in a turd or two. I accept the connection humbly. Even if my senses and my years of experience with the antics of shall-we-say "right-wing intellectuals" told me otherwise, I shall restrain my soi-distant intellectual judgement in favor of Jim Blish's instances. Who am I to make people into Fascists against their will?
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K'taogm-m 5 TUMBRILLIANTINE A large number of Vanguardists have requests us to published our "rather scorching little article in response to Jim Blish's first Tumbrils" in spite of the fact that we felt that new developments had given us reason to withhold it from the second K!taogm-m, We still do not consider that the viewpoint we held on Blish's politics at the time of writing that article to be today accurate. Consequently we are not inclined to publish the article as is. Nonetheless, with the bravado of the youthful hot-head who leaps before he has acquired his facts, and with a certain mulish fanaticism, Blish rushes into print a "sizzling" retort in the third Tumbrils. With the ancient and decrepit wheels clanking and squeaking, he rushes headlong into a typical Blishian confusion of supposition and fact. First saying that "if (my emphasis) the article was based upon the notion that Epode was a defense of Fascism, then he read that essay with a carelessness which for one of his soi-distant (means "pretended") intellectual integrity verges upon the insolent." Blish follows this with this beaut of a boner: "The remainder of the replies to Epode are guilty of exactly the same carelessness, though hardly the same condescension." What was originally an "if" supposition becomes in the next sentence an accepted fact. This is a typical literary trick of the soi-distant, smart-alecky, pseudo-intellectual. It is also often used by fascists. However, my withdrawn article did not deal with Epode at all. I accepted the advice of Walt Kubilius in the inadvisability of arguing with the chip-on-the-shoulder defender of the unpopular. I felt that Blish was merely striking a pose; that when the Pound case had been drawn out to its last quibbling finish, Blish would set up another unpopular fascist-tarred dummy. (I note that in mentioning the cases of Knut Hamsun and Richard Strauss, he is now preparing to do exactly that.) However, at this point in my withdrawn article I made what Blish heatedly claims to be an error. I charged Blish with being an open advocate of Fascism. I said: "The average man things fascism is a manure pile, philosophically, culturally, socially, historically, militarily, mentally, psychologically, ideologically, and in every other way including photographically (see the national periodicals and newsreels). Since to agree with the common man is to abandon the cloak of aloof superiority, Mr. Blish has haughtily identified himself with the manure pile." I am constrained to withdraw that last remark, because I have been told publicly by Blish that he is not an advocate of Facism--he merely sniffs around the edges and finds defendable merit in a turd or two. I accept the connection humbly. Even if my senses and my years of experience with the antics of shall-we-say "right-wing intellectuals" told me otherwise, I shall restrain my soi-distant intellectual judgement in favor of Jim Blish's instances. Who am I to make people into Fascists against their will?
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