Brecht’s The Judgment to Select Those in Whose Hands the Truth Will Be Effective
My friend, yesterday I asked: Where can we take our poetry? Who can we sing for? Where can we go? Who can we be? By that, I suppose, I meant: who is your community? Who do you write for and why?
I also asked us to think beyond socialism. That is, while I believe Brecht has many good ideas, some of his suggestions seem to me a little out dated; they no longer reach the people who need to hear them. So how can we approach people who need to hear this? What new language do we need to use?
I love this section of Brecht's essay Writing the Truth: 5 Difficulties because it addresses my profession, that is, the writer. It demands of me to consider my community and like many acts of kismet, that question has been punting about the blogworld of late. Eduardo C. Corral wrote:
Some bloggers explained how journal publication for them is an extension or byproduct of community. I don't feel any urgency to partake in community by seeking/gaining publication in journals. Crazy, no? And you know why I don't feel this urgency? Blogs! Blogging makes me feel like a member of a community. My blog is a small and silly contribution to a community I care deeply about.
I believe Eduardo speaks for many people when he states that the act of writing in the electronic world makes him feel like part of a community. Humans are social animals and we do all sorts of things to feel like we belong to something. I also feel I am not the person to challenge him, or anyone else, on this notion. One person's Utopia is another's oddity, but it still remains true that it is a Utopia … of sorts. However, in dialog with both Brecht's essay and Neruda's pledge to write for his "simple people," I ask what benefits do you get from maintaining this community? The context of Eduardo's comments is that for some people he knows publishing in journals makes them feel part of something bigger, something connected. And Eduardo is not the only one to put forth this idea. In the December 18, 2005 issue of The New York Times Book Review, Hugo Lindgren reviews two books, Synthetic Worlds by Edward Castronova and Smartbomb by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby. What caught my eye was a paragraph that ran more or less like this:
Castronova's vision [of a world wide online community] has elements of both utopia and dystopia. But mostly he is bullish. Life in these alternative zones may eventually become so fulfilling, he contends, 'that a fairly substantial exodus may loom in the distance.' He means this, really. Like the Irish and Italians who left their native lands in the late 19th century to come to America, gamers could create a genuine human migration, away from the real and into the virtual. What will be real then?
I think this argument, and in effect the whole idea of a blogworld in general, is a superficial one. I am not saying it is not true; yes, as our computers expand and we create more exciting virtual worlds more people with access to computers will be drawn in to spend their time in them. But it is that word right there — access, call it economics, call it liberty — that does not come in conversation. It is like what Brecht writes about, "the writer thinks: I have spoken and those who wish to hear will hear me. In reality he has spoken and those who are able to pay hear him." Like all gated communities, even gated utopias, it is still gated. While I know many middle class Americans who cannot conceive of a world without electronic toys to get them through their day, to link them to a global network, most of the world is not so exuberant. This is where the contradiction comes in; yes, by linking yourself up to an online "village" you are developing something that resembles a community, you might even call it a community and everyone linked to you will agree, but it is a village based on advantage, economics, privilege. If you cannot afford a computer, electricity, the time it takes to surf the Net, you are not part of it. This electronic "village" we are so proud of is only a village as long as everyone can afford it.
Let's take this one step further. You are reading this, I am writing this, we are part of a community … correct? But if I stop blogging for a month, or get struck down tomorrow, or arrested, or have my electricity shut off, will you come looking for me to find what happened? Even people like Eduardo and ruth-e who I am fond of and email back and forth (though I have never met either, or anyone for that matter, in the blogworld); will they get on an airplane and hunt me down? My guess is no; this is not that type of village.1 Now, the same isn't true for my flesh and blood neighbors who live next door to me. If Homeland Security came knocking on my door they would take a more than passing interest in my fate. Yet I do not write my poems with my neighbors in mind. I blog for the academia or the journals or for some distant nagging voice in my head that tells me poetry must be Difficult to be Deep. Again, Brecht points out: "… the truth cannot merely be written; it must be written for someone, someone who can do something with it." And since I limit my voice by only speaking to those who have computers and the command of English and the time and money to listen, I speak to a very limited segment of the Earth's population.
This isn't to say we should stop blogging, it is to question where you are putting your energy and to ask if you are getting back what you put in? I wonder what Bertolt Brecht would make of this new world? We might assume he'd be caught up in these shiny new toys as much as we are, but he also might point out that the Internet is a capitalist creation, benefiting capitalists at the expense of others. And that just circles around and asks the question once again: "what is your community"? "What is your village?" "Who are we writing for and why?" Brecht writes:
The century-old custom of trade in critical and descriptive writing and the fact that the writer has been relived of concern for the destination of what he has written have caused him to labor under a false impression. He believes that his customer or employer, the middleman, passes on what he has written to everyone. The writer thinks: I have spoken and those who wish to hear will hear me. In reality he has spoken and those who are able to pay hear him. A great deal, though still too little, has been said about his; I merely want to emphasize that “writing for someone” has been transformed into merely “writing.” But the truth cannot merely be written; it must be written for someone, someone who can do something with it. The process of recognizing truth is the same for writers and readers. In order to say good things, one’s hearing must be good and one must hear good things. The truth must be spoke deliberately and listened to deliberately. And for us writers it is important to whom we tell the truth and who tells it to us.
We must tell the truth about evil conditions to those for whom the conditions are worst, and we must also learn the truth from them. We must address not only people who hold certain views, but people who, because of their situation, should hold these views. And the audience is continually changing. Even the hangmen can be addressed when the payment for hanging stops, or when the work becomes too dangerous. The Bavarian peasants were against every kind of revolution, but when the war went on too long and the sons who came home found no room on their farms, it was possible to win them over to revolution.
It is important for the writer to strike the true note of truth. Ordinarily, what we hear is a very gentle, melancholy tone, the tone of people who would not hurt a fly. Hearing this one, the wretched become more wretched. Those who use it may not be foes, but they are certainly not allies. The truth is belligerent; it strikes out not only against falsehood, but against particular people who spread falsehood.
The blogworld, to me, is a lot like Japanese anime; there are huge jumps of logic, poorly dubbed voices, a lot of sexism dressed up as comedy but everyone goes along with the "plot" anyway and says its normal. Let us consider an idea, shall we? In the anime film Key: the Metal Idol, the title character is Tokiko "Key" Mima, a girl robot who longs to be human. One day her dying professor/ grandfather tells her:
… that it is possible for her to become human … all she has to do is to make 30 thousand friends, and that she should do it as soon as possible, before she malfunctions again, and goes into a sleep in which she never can wake up from.
So how does one make 30,000 friends as soon as possible? Easy; Key becomes a rock and roll singer, since through song (poetry) she can reach and befriend a much larger audience than simply going door to door selling Amway. Perhaps you might see where I am trying to go with this? If the audience is continually changing, if the blogworld is a community, a global one at that, if you want 30,000 new friends, what are we doing and what are you saying to help this along?2 And I ask again, Where can we take our poetry? Who can we sing for? Where can we go? Who can we be? And I add to that this question: What are you saying that your neighbors can benefit from? What truth are you speaking? Why? If our poetry is to do anything, to address not only people who hold certain views, but people who, because of their situation, should hold these views, what can you give us?
- And in that it is a very American creation, or Western, or whatever you want to call people who volunteer to interact in a world that gives back very little from the massive amount of energy and time and money it takes to keep it afloat. [back]
- I make the assumption that we are online together to get our voices and views heard, to get our poetry out and about, to get our ideas and dreams shared … but that is not true for everyone, I understand. [back]