Philosophical
Dialogues XXXI
EXISTENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE
I
By Franz J. T. Lee
April 14, 2000
(Scene: Philosophy Seminar.)
Coseino: This class will be of a transitional nature. Progressively, we are entering the transcendental domain of our Philosophy. However, at first, we'll deal briefly with Brecht's Marxist perspective, with the general conception of alienation, with the theory of alienation, and with alienated labour. I'll summarize Brecht's Marxist views.
Firstly, just a glance at the works of Brecht, when one knows something about Marxian Praxis and Theory, will immediately reveal that they are saturated with scientific socialist ideas. He perceived Marxism as Science and Philosophy revolving around Reason. Of course, the social conditions of his time reflected Marxist answers to Fascism and Nazism which shook Europe in its very capitalist soul. According to his Marxist conception, the only constant thing on Earth is change, of course, change within the very system. For him art and drama were means to confront the upsurging fascism in his homeland, Germany.
Already in 1931, with the revision of Man Is Man, he fervently attacked fascism, showing the dominating and exploitative essence of capitalism.
Karl: How did official art react to this attitude?
Coseino: In Germany, at that time, professional theater, enveloped in Nazi sentiments, simply boycotted Brecht. For this very reason he joined Slatan Dudow and the Un-American Activities.
Karl: Yes, later Brecht escaped the onslaught of McCarthyism; also in 1953, in Turandot, his final play, he fiercely attacked the ideological role of reactionary intellectuals in the capitalist state.
Coseino: At best Marxian influence can be seen in the theatrical techniques which Brecht used in drama. As we know, the concept of alienation is derived from social theory and philosophy. It was extensively used by Hegel and Marx.
Karl: Did Brecht adopt the Marxian conception of alienated labour?
Coseino:
Yes, in nearly all his works, the application of this notion can be seen.
It
points out that the selling of labour power on
the capitalist market estranges the worker, and thus inhibits his self-determination
and development.
Karl: Now I understand where the technique of Brecht came from, that is, why he would distance the audience from the play, like in the case of the Threepenny Opera, which we have discussed last week, and thereafter, on another level, Brecht engages his viewers again, encourages their emancipatory participation.
Coseino: D'accord. In such a social process, a healing, a self-reflective condition is being generated.
Patricia: Did Brecht highlight other Marxian methods?
Mahatma: For sure, for example, as we have seen in the Threepenny Opera, he utilized the techniques of "class conflict" and "social structures", beggars and criminals, to characterize his actors.
Albert: Did he just take over Marxist concepts and strategies willy-nilly?
Indira: Of course, not. Brecht was not eclectic; he seriously examined Marxian ideas in real life situations; as a Marxist himself, artistically he cultivated scientific praxis and philosophic theory.
Karl: But, later in life, he turned away from Marxism.
Coseino: Yes, away from "Marxism", but not away from Marx and Engels. We should not forget that Engels was a capitalist by profession. They were historic products of the capitalist system, and, like most of us, they only wanted to improve, to humanize the global labour system, to change it from within, to free labour, to disalienate labour. Nothing more, nothing less.
Martina: Oh! Professor. Sometimes you can really be such a swift marksman!
Coseino: We all try our best. And we are all here to learn, to be a second ahead, a millimetre ahead, of our adversaries. That's the reason why we have brains, why we act and think.
Karl: Agreed. However, with many areas of human problems, Marx just did not deal. What did Brecht do in this case?
Coseino:
Exactly that what we all should do. He simply took an ex oriente lux
view:
he simply incorporated Oriental philosophic dialectical
world outlooks.
Bill: I'm not just a lover of orgone; I also admire my Shakespeare. Professor, don't you think that Shakespeare had already used similar techniques?
Coseino:
Definitely. He often applied the "outsider" technique.
Take A Midsummer Night's Dream,
for example, he affirms truth, righteousness and order, but like Brecht,
not "All's Well, That Ends Well". Some characters are left outside in the
cold, alienated. At the end of the play in question, the lovers react
irresponsive to the imaginative world.
"The best in
this kind are but shadows:
and the
worst are no worse,
if imagination
amend them."
Jeanette:
This technique is also underlined in the comedy The Merchant of
Venice ;
many of the unresolved elements Shakespeare resided
in the character, Shylock, a Jew.
Coseino: Excellent, Jeanette. Shylock, the proud Jew and money-lender, is contrasted with Antonio, the Christian merchant. I'll quote something from my favourite scene, where Shylock defends his "human rights", which really is filled with histrionic power and sensitive, personal emotions:
" I am a Jew . . . Hath not a Jew eyes? hath
not
a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections,
passions? fed with the same food,
hurt
with the same weapons, subject to the
same
diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed
and cooled by the same winter and
summer,
as a Christian is? If you prick us, do
we
not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not
laught?
if you poison us, do we not die? and
if
you wrong us, shall we not revenge? "
(Act III, Scene 1, 50 ff.)
Well, in my youth,
in my revolutionary days, I always quoted this passage
to show how perverse "racism" is; it was launched
against the white "racists" of Apartheid South Africa. However, the Jewish
"outsider", Shylock, never ever reached "the beautiful mountain"; all
his "revenge" was in vain.
Mary: Similarly, in As You Like It, the melancholic character Jaques leaves the hall before the "last dance". Also in the sad comedy, Twelfth Night, Malvolio, the alienated "outsider steward", as final character on-stage refuses any reconciliation, as follows: "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you."
Coseino: We'll continue next time with the concept of "alienation" and it's relation to labour, to life on earth.
(The class disperses
in silence; outside the marauding "aliens" roar.)
