John Dunn

First posted Saturday, 21 June 2014 at 20:30

I came across these wonderful paragraphs whilst reading Ezra Pound’s Guide to Kulchur. Still as relevant today, if not more so, in a desacralised money-based society.

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Usury is contra naturam. It is not merely in opposition to nature’s increase,it is antithetic to discrimination by the senses. Discrimination by the senses is dangerous to avarice. It is dangerous because any perception or any high development of the perceptive facilities may lead to knowledge. The money-changer only thrives on ignorance.

He thrives on all sorts of insensitivity and non-perception. An instant sense of proportion imperils financiers.

You can, by contrast, always get financial backing for debauchery. Any form of “entertainment” that debases perception, anything that profanes the mysteries or tends to obscure discrimination, goes hand in hand with drives towards money profit.

It might not be too much to say that the whole of protestant morals, intertwined with usury tolerance, has for centuries tended to obscure perception of degrees, to debase the word moral to a single groove, to degrade all moral perceptions outside the relation of the sexes, and to vulgarise the sex relation itself.

John Dunn.