Kulchur

Ezra Pound's Guide to Kulchur might be understood as a simple cultural guide. "Kulchur" is related but not identical to the ordinary English term "culture." Kulchur is related to the Greek term "paideuma" which means "the taught." Pound defines Kulchur as "the tangle or complex of the inrooted ideas of any period" and as "the gristly roots of ideas that are in action."

This is a crucial distinction. Culture often includes knowledge that can be passively known but Pound's conception of Kulchur is a more active sort of knowledge. It is also non-propositional in that it is what remains when all propositional knowledge of a culture has been removed.

Kulchur then is a kind of movement of ideas. The notion of active ideas is crucial to understanding Guide to Kulchur. Pound conceives of himself as a defender of civilization; but he conceives of civilization as an active playing...