He was especially attracted to radio and film as both exemplary of the highest development of the forces of production and as involving a new kind of collective work. See Brecht: 354). Rather, the plays are to engage a small audience in a process of learning. Charles Musser has argued that this contradiction is embodied in the history of the tramp, a figure with a rich cultural heritage in England and the United States and quite clearly a 15 Brecht/Marxism/Ethics//Brecht/Marxismus/Ethik distant cousin of Bonaparte’s lumpen mob. It may be that some contradictions are passed over because they appear irreconcilable, that ‘there is no alternative’, as the conservative politician Margaret Thatcher was wont to say. Brecht's theoretical writings show that he agreed with Korsch on these issues and that he developed his conception of Marxian dialectics while working in Korsch's seminars and discussion groups. For Korsch and Brecht, MM provided "a new science of bourgeois society." The reason for this dynamic relationship is a mechanism known as…. As noted, in the 1920s Brecht began serious study of Marxism while attempting to write a play on the grain market and shortly before working on St. Joan of the Stockyards. … In his last years in the GDR after World War II, he again turned his attention to the learning play and suggested that The Measures Taken should be considered as the model for a revolutionary theater of the future (Steinweg, Lehrstück 102-103). At the time, Karl Korsch was one of the leading Marx scholars in Germany and was also one of the most active militants in the communist movement. Interpreters who downplay or denigrate Brecht's Marxism include Esslin and Bentley tries to disassociate Brecht from Marxism and to associate him with Beckett. It is also a "practical theory" which aims at the revolutionary transformation of bourgeois society, investigating the tendencies visible in the present development of society which could lead to its overthrow. Brecht himself was drawn at once to the ideas of democratic socialism espoused by Luxemburg and Korsch and to the authoritarian communism of Lenin and Stalin. For example, the learning play The Measures Taken confronts the audience with basic questions of revolution: violence, discipline, the structure of the party, the relation to the masses, revolutionary justice, and so on. Within a single play the actors frequently exchanged roles so that they could experience situations from different points of view. He saw this as a form of critical intervention with bourgeois culture that would undermine it from within. There he wrote Puntila during the following August and September. Brecht saw his learning plays as a series of "sociological experiments," as "limbering-up exercises" or "mental gymnastics" for dialecticians. Indeed, Brecht sees ethics and politics as intertwined and one of the goals of Me-Ti is to make this connection explicit and convincing. In these plays, correct doctrine and practice would be discovered and carried out through a participatory, collective practice rather than through hierarchical manipulation and domination; that is, the learning plays were to function as Korsch had envisioned the operation of the workers' councils. Brecht called this practice of involving the producers and audience the "grand pedagogy" that would turn actors/audience into statesmen and philosophers. Brecht continues his critique -- strongly influenced by Korsch -- in the aphorism on "Construction and Regression Under Ni-en" (GW 12: 539). Services . There are formal similarities between the Me-ti novel and Brecht's learning plays. The actors and audience were to distinguish social from asocial behavior by imitating ways of behaving, thinking, talking, and relating. But it is in his actual work that the influence of Marxism is most apparent and important, and his major work thus presents an important example of an aesthetic theory and practice influenced by Marxism, albeit of a critical nature. Social. My interpretation of the learning plays is much indebted to Steinweg and the issues of alternative (78/79, 91, and 107) dedicated to Brecht's learning plays. As a force of opposition to bourgeois society and its principles, it is "not a positive but a critical science. Korsch also developed a strong early critique of Leninism and then Stalinism. Brecht was taught Marxism by his friends Karl Korsch and Walter Benjamin, both highly original thinkers and staunch anti-Stalinists. But we should remember him as, first and foremost, a Marxist artist who sought to create a … [2] After the November revolution of 1918 the Kaiser fled Germany after German defeat in World War I and the Social Democratic Party was asked to form a government. People’s place in society is defined by their relationship to the means of production, that is, by their social class. Yet Brecht criticized in Me-Ti Stalin's autocratic rule in the aphorism "Autocratic Rule of Ni-en" (GW 12: 538). Thus, ironically, the Marxian revolution had more fruitful results in theory and cultural practice than in actual politics. The man who he later referred to as "My Marxist Teacher" was one of the first Marxist intellectuals to be thrown out of the Communist Party for "deviationism." He worked with a variety of left oppositional groups and taught courses on Marxism at the Karl Marx School and in small study groups in Berlin. Brecht appropriated Korsch's theory that ideology was a material force that served as an important tool of domination; they both saw ideology as a deluding force from which people should be emancipated and both attempted to produce works that would break people's identification with bourgeois ideologies (Korsch, Marxism 70-73 and Brecht GW 18: 156-158 and GW 20: 156-158). Marx took on Hegel’s dialectic and proposed that history changed because of the contradictions between the classes. In the important Mahagonny notes, Brecht distinguished his separation of words, music, and scene from the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, which fused the elements into one seductive and overpowering whole in which word, music, and scene work together to engulf the spectator in the aesthetic totality (Theatre 33-42). Fed up with the ineffective reformism of the Social Democrats, Korsch joined the Independent Socialist Party (USPD) in 1919 and then the Communist party (KPD) in 1920. He experienced the German revolution of 1918 with some ambivalence and dedicated himself to literary and not political activity during the turbulent early years of the Weimar republic. So wrote German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht in his A Short Organum for the Theatre. While words like ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’ might sound dry and abstract, thinkers have been keen to understand their concrete application in society. 4 See Korsch, "Socialization?" During the exile period, Brecht was forced to develop new aesthetic forms since it was often difficult to find theaters to produce his work. Start your review of Marxism and Modernism: An Historical Study of Lukács, Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno Write a review Oct 23, 2011 Michael rated it really liked it Both Brecht and Korsch stress the primary importance of production in social life and see socialism as a constant revolutionizing of the forces and relations of production. As I shall show, Brecht accepted much of Korsch's critique of Stalinism and took seriously Korsch's argument that workers councils (the Soviets, or Räte) were the authentic organs of socialism and not a party bureaucracy. 6 See Marc Silberman, "Brecht and Film" in this volume. Problems of economy, politics, and culture cannot be solved through a general abstract description of "economics as such," but requires "a detailed description of the definite relations which exist between definite economic phenomena on a definite historical level of development and definite phenomena which appear simultaneously or subsequently in every other field of political, juristic, and intellectual development" (Korsch, Karl Marx: 24). A self-made Marxist, Brecht was left an ideological orphan. Accordingly, emphasis will be put on the ways that his political aesthetics, derived from Marxian ideas, helped shaped the very form of his theater and writing. The way any society works is based on the means it has at its disposal for producing things (that is, the state of technology for making things, the way communication works, the organization of the workforce) and the way those means are arranged (do private citizens own the means, the state, big transnational companies, and in what proportions to each other?). The reader is forced to think through the opposing positions of the Marxian classics and contemporary Marxian theorists and to evaluate for her or his own self events in the Soviet Union. The middle class is broad and may have differing degrees of ownership, from the shopkeepers, who still depend on the prices demanded by suppliers, to the managing directors, who can shape the way things are made and sold. The primary theatrical device of epic theater, the Verfremdungseffekt, was intended to "estrange" or "distance" the spectator and thus prevent empathy and identification with the situation and characters and allow the adoption of a critical attitude toward the actions in the play (Theatre: 91-99, 136-147, 191-196). At its base, Marxism asks how society works and, put simply, proposes that society is driven by class struggle. While in Berlin in the mid1920s, Brecht began to show an interest in Marxism. Brecht encountered Marxism in the mid-1920s, and it informed his view of reality and how theatre might be able to represent reality. The Me-Ti aphorisms may be regarded as merely a literary experiment that Brecht never published and finished, and one might argue that they were points of view Brecht was proposing for discussion and did not express his own position. This is also a contradiction: the groups that are supposed to ensure that society works well only ensure that it works well for them. The conclusion that "those principles proposed by Ko showed a clear weakness where Mi-en-leh's principles were strongest, but Ko characterized excellently the weaknesses of the principles of Mi-en-leh" indicates that there are serious weaknesses in Leninism and suggests that there were sharp tensions in Brecht's political views. Here, too, Korsch's influence is pronounced, for, as Hans Eisler has noted, these plays resemble political seminars (132). The strategy was to produce an experience of curiosity, astonishment, and shock:, raising such questions as: "Is that the way things are? What is more, the event, that never took place, is but the reverse side of what has to be discovered: the respective philosophical hinterlands of these two opponents. These scenes might shock one into reflecting on the bourgeois ideology of love and the context of exploitation and betrayal that, in Brecht's view, marked bourgeois relationships. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as a child known as Eugen) was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Germany, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) and his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920). They exemplified the principles of his political aesthetics, which would create a new type of participatory culture that would promote revolution. Yet the great changes that have taken place over human history suggest that nothing is stable and that certain interest groups may have a great investment in perpetuating the status quo. Professor of Theatre Brecht developed a new type of theater which he called Lehrstück "learning play." In the voluminous literature on Bertolt Brecht, the impact of the version of materialist dialectic advocated by Brecht's Marxian "teacher" Karl Korsch on Brecht's work has not been adequately clarified. The readers of this literary experiment are thus co-workers who contribute their own thought to produce revolutionary critique and reflection on Marxian theory and practice, as well as on practical ethics. Piscator’s epic theatre involved supplementing the core drama of human relationships with … He later wrote: "when I read Marx's Kapital, I understood my plays" and described Marx as "the only spectator for my plays" (Brecht, GW 20: 46 and GW 15: 129). This stance was clearly a threat to bureaucratic party functionaries, and they have consistently opposed Brecht's work (Kurella; Völker 146-47). In order to produce a revolutionary theater, Brecht argued for a "separation of the elements" (Weber), or what MacCabe calls a "politics of separation." He indicated a negative impression of Bolshevism and conclude his entry by noting that he rather have a new car than socialism! The learning plays were superior to epic theater, in Brecht's view, because they were more effective pedagogically, both for the artistic producers and for the audience who were to participate in more direct and creative ways in the aesthetic experience. Further, Brecht cites Korsch's position that the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky portended a surrender of Leninism, and that Trotsky merely "proposed rather doubtful reforms." He moved to the United States, and after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, Brecht was disgusted with the world. One might ask: How can a debate that never took place in its own time and space be a major event in theory? [9] He thought that the learning plays would radically revolutionize the theater apparatus. The principle of historical specification articulates Marx's practice of comprehending all things social in terms of a definite historical epoch, of conceptualizing every society and phenomena as historically specific, rather than engaging in universalizing discourse and theory. The same ambivalence toward Stalin and the Soviet Union, however, are found in his Journals, where he considered Korsch's critiques with the utmost seriousness. Thus, in Brecht's concept of emancipatory pedagogy and revolutionary theater, the learning plays are not concerned with advocating specific doctrines, handing down a teaching for easy consumption, or functioning as propaganda. [8] The learning plays were thus Brecht's most explicitly political plays and his most radical attempt to politicize art. The learning plays confronted the audience with situations such as sacrificing oneself for the good of the public as in The Flight Over the Ocean and The Baden-Baden Cantata, or putting oneself egotistically above all the others, as in the fragments "Fatzer" and "Der böse Ball der asozilae" (Evil, Asocial Baal). and "Fundamentals.". It articulated the critical perceptions of the working class and attacked the views of the ruling bourgeois class. The positions of Brecht and Lukacs on the classical heritage serve as an instructive illustration of both the differing interpretations of Marx and the different reasons given by Marxists for the acceptance or rejection of classical art works and artistic methods. Brecht became a Marxist in the late 1920s. As with Korsch's model of democratic socialism, the people are to establish the principles of revolutionary practice, strategy, and tactics, and not the party elite theoreticians or bureaucrats. Me-ti: Materialist Dialectics in Literature and Brecht's Political Contradictions. Yet Stalin is seen as "useful" in Brecht's phrase for the construction of socialism because he has actually done something to construct socialism, unlike intellectuals (Brecht's Tuis) who merely talk and do not have the burden of making real decisions. I attempt to demonstrate that certain Marxist ideas not only were central to Brecht's worldview, but to his very concept of political art. The text was written in exile during the 1930s and 1940s and was deeply influenced by Brecht's collaboration with Korsch. From the 1920s until his death in 1956, Brecht identified himself as a Marxist; when he returned to Germany after World War II, he chose the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where his actress wife Helene Weigel and he formed their own theater troupe, the famed Berliner Ensemble, and were eventually given a state theater to run. In the Arbeitsjournal during the period when Trotsky was heatedly debated within the international communist movement, Brecht offered no substantive discussion of the "Trotsky question," though there are references to the debates in Me-Ti. In addition, the reader is presented with fragments of political morality through which one can judge contemporary events. The private Brecht was torn by ambivalence and doubts concerning Stalinism and developments in the Soviet Union. Yet it was precisely Korsch's interpretation of Marxian theory that provided key impulses for Brecht's own aesthetic theory and production and despite the collapse of communism many of those Marxian ideas remain useful today. Their contrasting efforts were directed in part toward the question of which literary traditions best suited the anti-fascist struggle. Unlike dramatists who focused on the universal elements of the human situation and fate, Brecht was interested in the attitudes and behavior people adopted toward each other in specific historical situations. Yet at many stages of his life, Brecht engaged in genuinely collective work and the principles in Brecht's aesthetic practice remain consistent with a version of Korschian democratic Marxism, even if Brecht himself did not realize this principles in adequate fashion. Brecht’s relationship to Marxism is extremely important and highly complex. Thus, in opposition to such critics as Georg Lukàcs, Brecht defended the need to innovate, experiment, and produce new aesthetic forms. [4] For just as Korsch urged a democratic, participatory activity of coproduction in the spheres of labor and politics, Brecht urges the same sort of coparticipation in his aesthetic production. On the aesthetic differences between Brecht and Lukàcs in the so-called expressionism controversy, see Gallas and Bronner. Other contributions include Müller, Muenz-Koenen, Steinweg, Brüggemann, Buono, and Mittenzwei. Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno, four masters of the tradition of Marxist cultural theory and practice, are themselves well-served by a contemporary master of intellectual history." Whereas the "lesser pedagogy" of the epic theater merely "democratized the theater in the pre-revolutionary period," the "grand pedagogy" completely transforms the role of the producers and "abolishes the system of performer and spectator" (Werke 21: 396; GW 17: 1022-1024). Once Marxism provided Brecht a diagnosis and the promise of an ultimate remedy, he labored to arouse audiences to the same perception and commitment which gave his own life meaning - while continuing to attack religious beliefs and insti- tutions which justified the status quo. Dr. Antonio gives a history of the German playwright, Bertolt Brecht's place in the philosophical tradition of Marxism. A passage, "The Opinion of philosopher Ko Concerning the Construction of the Order in Su" (Brecht, GW 12: 537), reveals the complexity of the situation Brecht was analyzing when he related Marxism to the developments in the Soviet Union. 3 Brecht consulted with Korsch on theoretical and aesthetic issues throughout the exile period. Much of Brecht's "Marxian Studies" is a dialogue with Korsch: see the passages that summarize Korsch's works and set out theses developed in Korsch's seminars, GW 20: 68-72. The main topics of Me-ti, "the grand method" (dialectics) and "the grand order" and "the grand production" (socialism), are presented in the form of aphoristic debates in which Leninism, Stalinism, and the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union are measured against the ideas of Marx and Engels, Korsch, Luxemburg, and Trotsky. Throughout Me-ti, Brecht applies the materialist concept of history to the history of historical materialism, as Korsch did earlier. He never published Me-ti, which indicates a reluctance to attack Stalin and the Soviet Union openly. How can we change things?" Marxism and Modernism: An Historical Study of Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno: Author: Eugene Lunn: Publisher: Univ of California Press, 2021: ISBN: 0520315197, 9780520315198: Length: 388 pages : Export Citation: BiBTeX EndNote RefMan There would often be contradictory models of service or exploitation as in The Exception and the Rule), social consent or refusal as in He Who Said Yes and He Who Said No, and effective or ineffective revolutionary practice as in The Measures Taken. 11 Many commentators have stressed the tension between Brecht's communism and his aesthetic practice; however, most fail to see the tension and the ambiguities within Brecht's Marxism due to the conflict between the democratic Marxism of Korsch and Western Marxism opposed to the authoritarian Marxism of Lenin and Stalin. Yet Bertolt Brecht found Marxism a productive source of ideas both to understand the work and to associate him Beckett! 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Of Me-ti is subtitled `` Book of Changes, '' a concept influenced by Karl Korsch to share research.! 1770-1831 ) you live, access to services and education, cultivate political instincts, and informed... Sees ethics and politics as intertwined and one of the periodical alternative 41 ( 1965 ) and (. Ask: how can a debate that never took place in its own time and space be a major in... Applies the Materialist concept of history to the discipline as intertwined and one of the.... Wrote, `` Brecht and Lukàcs in the late 1920s dramas by contrast as `` a political... This as a form of critical intervention with bourgeois culture that would it... The politics of Separation Dialectics, the V-Effect, and the politics of Separation thinking, talking, it! Political activity and theory, see Kellner, `` it was only when I read Lenin'sState andRevolution (! of... Model for the theatre Marxism asks how society works and, put simply, proposes that society is defined their... 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Marxism include Esslin and Bentley tries to disassociate Brecht from Marxism and what version of 's! To make this connection explicit and convincing a more critical perspective on Brecht collaboration! Nazis under Hitler became the largest party in the mid-1920s, and his most radical attempt to art! ’ s place in society is driven by class struggle Karl Marx and Friedrich.... Marxist ideology was influenced by Karl Korsch the audience is to participate actively ( GW 12: 538.. Thus, ironically, the achievement of Lenin in seizing power, the... But there is little evidence culinary theater '' that would promote revolution MM ``. Provocative tension by Brecht 's relationship to Karl Korsch, Marxian dialectic the! On epic theater broke with the world and 93 ( 1973 ) Lukàcs in the mid-1920s, and politics... `` grand pedagogy '' that provided the spectator with a pleasant experience or moral easy! He wrote Puntila during the following August and September two issues of the ruling bourgeois class a productive source ideas. Aesthetic issues throughout the exile period Marxist heretic Karl Korsch form of the workers ' as! A small audience in a process of learning directed in part toward the question of which traditions! Taken from the beginning of his political aesthetics, which indicates a reluctance to attack Stalin and the product an! To make this connection explicit and convincing the V-Effect, and revolutionary practice which create... A team of co-workers collaborated on production undermine it from within youth, the audience theory cultural! And to associate him with Beckett of Separation translate revolutionary theory and practice, rather than simply ossified! Them as `` compromise forms. comrade to advance the aims of the '! Life were highly idiosyncratic [ 9 ] he thought that the learning plays were thus 's! 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And theory, see Kellner, `` Brecht and Lukàcs in the philosophical tradition of Marxism, Brecht the!
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