Brecht’s The Cunning to Spread the Truth Among the Many
It is indeed the case that the high literary level of a given statement can afford it protection. Often, however, it also arouses suspicion. In such case it may be necessary to lower it deliberately … Propaganda that stimulates thinking, in no matter what field, is useful to the cause of the oppressed. — Bertolt Brecht (1934)
This is the last section of Brecht's essay Writing the Truth: 5 Difficulties (there is a summary that follows but more on that later) and this is also the part I take leave with many of my fellow writers who use their poetry (and words and energy) to complain about their sex lives or jobs or children and ask you try to strike out for higher grounds with me. Or, if the flood waters are rising too fast, I'll be happy just to find a spot on the roof next to you.
I say this because I fall into the populist camp of poetry when it comes to how I see how modern poetry could be used in this day and age. There seems, from a glance at American Poetry Review, Poetry and other magazines being published right now, a general contempt for our audience. It is as if the editors and poets view this slim form of literature as a code for themselves alone. There is nothing wrong, I suppose, with creating isolationism in your art, speaking in codes no one can render without a PhD. It becomes, however, an intellectual game of sorts, and if you believe you have no responsibilities to anyone else other yourself and your publisher, then I wish you luck and goodbye. For me life is short and I tire easily with so many poets telling truths with little "t"s, that rain is wet and a white wall is painted white and that no one is listening to them.
I ask you again, if you are not writing anything your neighbors can use, who are you writing to? Who do you imagine reading your poetry?
The general public certainly wants to read poetry1 I would go so far as to say that the average American is hungry to have us say something they can feed upon. Yet it seems very difficult to find people saying important things right now. Periodically the press bemoans the state of today's teens and all the violence, misogyny, racism that goes into popular music nowadays. Why aren't poets, the ones who profess to non-violence and enlightenment, countering this spiritual pollution with their poetry? Teenagers spend over a billion dollars a year on their entertainment. Why are there no poets writing anything teens can relate to? We are all starved for better role models, better ways to see the world, better futures. Why is modern American poetry so silent when it comes to saying something so simple?
Poetic nonintervention is, indeed, the modus apparatus of our day.
I shall point out my friends at Poets Against War. I know I am focusing on them lately but it is with love and respect for some people who had, in my view, a fantastic chance to draw the nation's attention to their cause … and blew it. The president's wife invited Sam Hammill, Sharon Olds and others to read at the White House, she keeps inviting poets to read at the White House, a rare chance of entering the enemy's camp and say whatever the hell you want to say and everyone keeps turning her down! So, instead of turning poetry into a weapon to spread the truth to many, they isolate themselves on a website,2 pound themselves on the back as if turning down Mrs. Bush was a dangerous thing and require anyone who could help their cause to first try to find them. I think this is exactly what Brecht is talking about when he says: Cunning is necessary to spread the truth. This feels to me as a great missed opportunity.
However, it does not always have to be this way. I am not translating Neruda's Odes for my own health, but because I think he pointed a way we could follow. Why not say something that will live forever with "simple people" (again, Neruda's words) instead of 15 minutes of elite fame and then be passed over when the next shiny thing comes along? Give me a DJ and a funky beat we can dance to and I will turn these odes into something that would speak to the next generation. More now than ever, I think, we need to write simple poetry of earth shaking subjects that will speak to everyone. My friends, it is as simple as that.
Many people, proud that they posses the courage necessary for the truth, happy that they have succeeded in finding it, perhaps fatigued by the labor necessary to put it into workable form and impatient that it should be grasped by those whose interests they are espousing, consider it superfluous to apply any special cunning in spreading the truth. For this reason they often sacrifice the whole effectiveness of their work. At all times cunning has been employed to spread the truth, whenever truth was suppressed or concealed. Confucius falsified an old, patriotic historical calendar. He changed certain words. Where the calendar read “The ruler of Hun had the philosopher Wan killed because he said so and so,” Confucius replaced killed by murdered. If the calendar said that tyrant so and so died by assassination, he substituted was executed. In this manner Confucius opened the way for a fresh interpretation of history.
In our times anyone who says population in place of people or race, and privately owned land in place of soil, is by that simple act withdrawing his support from a great many lies. He is taking away from these words their rotten, mystical implications. The word people (Volk) implies a certain unity and certain common interests; it should therefor be used only when we are speaking of a number of peoples, for then alone is anything like community of interest conceivable. The population of a given territory may have a good many different and even opposed interests—and this is a truth that is being suppressed. In like manner, whoever speaks of soil and describes vividly the effect of plowed fields upon nose and eyes, stressing the smell and the color of earth, is supporting the rulers’ lies. For the fertility of the soil is not the question, nor men’s love for the soil, nor their industry in working it; what is of prime importance is the price of grain and the price of labor. Those who extract profits from the soil are not the same people who extract grain from it, and the earthy smell of a turned furrow is unknown on the produce exchanges. The latter have another smell entirely. Privately owned land is the right expressing; it affords less opportunity for deception.
Where oppression exists, the word obedience should be employed instead of discipline, for discipline can be self-imposed and therefore has something noble in its character that obedience lacks. And a better word than honor is human dignity; the latter tends to keep the individual in mind. We all know very well what sort of scoundrels thrust themselves forward, clamoring to defend the honor of a people. And how generously they distribute honors to the starvelings who feed them. Confucius’ sort of cunning is still valid today. Thomas Moore in his Utopia described a country in which just conditions prevailed. It was a country very different from the England in which he lived, but it resembled that England very closely, except for the conditions of life.
Lenin wished to describe exploitation and oppression on Sakhalin Island, but it was necessary for him to beware of the Czarist police. In place of Russia he put Japan, and in place of Sakhalin, Korea. The methods of the Japanese bourgeoisie reminded all his readers of the Russian bourgeoisie and Sakhalin, but the pamphlet was not blamed because Russia was hostile to Japan. Many things that cannot be said in Germany about Germany can be said about Austria.
There are many cunning devices by which a suspicious State can be hoodwinked.
Voltaire combated the Church doctrine of miracles by writing a gallant poem about the Maid of Orleans. He described the miracles that undoubtedly must have taken place in order that Joan of Arc should remain a virgin in the midst of an army of men, a court of aristocrats, and a host of monks. By the elegance of his style, and by describing erotic adventures such as characterized the luxurious life of the ruling class, he threw discredit upon a religion which provided them with the means to pursue a loose life. He even made it possible for his works, in illegal ways, to reach those for whom they were intended. Those among his readers who held power promoted or tolerated the spread of his writings. By so doing, they were withdrawing support from the police who defended their own pleasures. Another example: the great Lucretius expressly says that one of the chief encouragements to the spread of Epicurian atheism was the beauty of his verses.
It is indeed the case that the high literary level of a given statement can afford it protection. Often, however, it also arouses suspicion. In such case it may be necessary to lower it deliberately. This happens, for example, when descriptions of evil conditions are inconspicuously smuggled into the despised form of a detective story. Such descriptions would justify a detective story. The great Shakespeare deliberately lowered the level of his work for reasons of far less importance. In the scene in which Coriolanus’ mother confronts her son, who is departing for his native city, Shakespeare deliberately makes her speech to the son very weak. It was inopportune for Shakespeare to have Coriolanus restrained by good reasons from carrying out his plan; it was necessary to have him yield to old habit with a certain sluggishness.
Shakespeare also provides a model of cunning utilized in the spread of truth: this is Antony’s speech over Caesar’s body. Antony continually emphasizes that Brutus is an honorable man, but he also describes the deed, and this description of the deed is more impressive than the description of the doer. The orator thus permits himself to be overwhelmed by the facts; he lets them speak for themselves.
An Egyptian poet who lived four thousand years ago employed a similar method. That was a time of great class struggles. The class that had hitherto ruled was defending itself with difficulty against its great opponent, that part of the population which had hitherto served it. In the poem a wise man appears at the ruler’s court and calls for struggle against the internal enemy. He present a long and impressive description of the disorders that have arisen from the uprising of the lower classes. This description reads as follows:
So it is: the nobles lament and the servants rejoice. Every city says: Let us drive the strong from out of our midst. The offices are broken open and the documents removed. The slaves are becoming masters.
So it is: the son of a well-born man can no longer be recognized. The mistress’s child becomes her slave girl’s son.
So it is: The burghers have been bound to the millstones. Those who never saw the day have gone out into the light.
So it is: The ebony poor boxes are being broken up; the noble sesban wood is cut up into beds.
Behold, the capital city has collapsed in an hour.
Behold, the poor of the land have become rich.
Behold, he who had not bread now possesses a barn; his granary is filled with the possessions of another.
Behold, it is good for a man when he may eat his food.
Behold, he who had no corn now possesses barns; those who accepted the largesse of corn now distribute it.
Behold, he who had not a yoke of oxen now possesses herds; he who could not obtain beasts of burden now possesses herds of neat cattle.
Behold, he who could build no hut for himself now possesses four strong walls.
Behold, the ministers seek shelter in the granary, and he who was scarcely permitted to sleep atop the walk now possesses a bed.
Behold, he who could not build himself a rowboat now possesses ships; when their owner looks upon the ships, he finds they are no longer his.
Behold, those who had clothes are now dressed in rags and he who wove nothing for himself now posses the finest linen. The rich man goes thirsty to bed, and he who once begged him for lees now has strong beer.
Behold, he who understood nothing of music now owns a harp; he to whom no one sang now praises the music.
Behold, he who slept alone for lack of a wife, now has women; those who looked at their faces in the water now possess mirrors.
Behold, the highest in the land run about without finding employment. Nothing is reported to the great any longer. He who once was a messenger now sends forth others to carry his messages. . .
Behold five men whom their master sent out. They say: go forth yourself; we have arrived.
It is significant that this is the description of a kind of disorder that must seem very desirable to the oppressed. And yet the poet’s intention is not transparent. He expressly condemns these conditions, though he condemns them poorly …
Jonathan Swift, in his famous pamphlet, suggested that the land could be restored to prosperity by slaughtering the children of the poor and selling them for meat. He presented exact calculations showing what economies could be effected if the governing classes stopped at nothing.
Swift feigned innocence. He defended a way of thinking which he hated intensely with a great deal of ardor and thoroughness, taking as his theme a question that plainly exposed to everyone the cruelty of that way of thinking. Anyone could be cleverer than Swift, or at any rate more humane—especially those who had hitherto not troubled to consider what were the logical conclusions of the views they held.
Propaganda that stimulates thinking, in no matter what field, is useful to the cause of the oppressed. Such propaganda is very much needed. Under governments which serve to promote exploitation, thought is considered base.
Anything that serves those who are oppressed is considered base. It is base to be constantly concerned about getting enough to eat; it is base to reject honors offered to the defenders of a country in which those defenders go hungry; base to doubt the Leader when his leadership leads to misfortunes; base to be reluctant to do work that does not feed the worker; base to revolt against the compulsion to commit senseless acts; base to be indifferent to a family which can no longer be helped by any amount of concern. The starving are reviled as voracious wolves who have nothing to defend; those who doubt their oppressors are accused of doubting their own strength; those who demand pay for their labor are denounced as idlers. Under such governments thinking in general is considered base and falls into disrepute. Thinking is no longer taught anywhere, and wherever it does emerge, it is persecuted.
Nevertheless, certain fields always exist in which it is possible to call attention to triumphs of thought without fear of punishment. These are the fields in which the dictatorships have need of thinking. For example, it is possible to refer to the triumphs of thought in fields of military science and technology. Even such matters as stretching wool supplies by proper organization, or inventing ersatz materials, require thinking. Adulteration of foods, training the youth for war—all such things require thinking; and in reference to such matters the process of thought can be described. Praise of war, the automatic goal of such thinking, can be cunningly avoided, and in this way the thought that arises from the question of how a war can best be waged can be made to lead to another question—whether the war has any sense. Thought can then be applied to the further question: how can a senseless war be averted?
Naturally, this question can scarcely be asked openly. Such being the case, cannot the thinking we have stimulated be made use of? That is, can it be framed so that it leads to action? It can.
In order that the oppression of one (the larger) part of the population by another (the smaller) part should continue in such a time as ours, a certain attitude of the population is necessary, and this attitude must pervade all fields. A discovery in the field of zoology, like that of the Englishman Darwin, might suddenly endanger exploitation. And yet, for a time the Church alone was alarmed; the people noticed nothing amiss. The researches of physicists in recent years have led to consequences in the field of logic which might well endanger a number of the dogmas that keep oppression going. Hegel, the philosopher of the Prussian State, who dealt with complex investigations in the field of logic, suggested to Marx and Lenin, the classic exponents of the proletarian revolution, methods of inestimable value. The development of the sciences is interrelated, but uneven, and the State is never able to keep its eye on everything. The advance guard of truth can select battle positions which are relatively unwatched.
What counts is that the right sort of thinking be taught, a kind of thinking that investigates the transitory and changeable aspect of all things and processes. Rulers have an intense dislike for significant changes. They would like to see everything remain the same—for a thousand years, if possible. They would love it if sun and moon stood still. Then no one would grow hungry any more, no one would want his supper. When the rulers have fired a shot, they do not want the enemy to be able to shoot; theirs must be the last shot. A way of thinking that stresses change is a good way to encourage the oppressed.
Another idea with which the victors can be confronted is that in everything and in every condition, a contradiction appears and grows. Such a view (that of dialectics, of the doctrine that all things flow and change) can be inculcated in realms that for a time escape the notice of the rulers. It can be employed in biology or chemistry, for example. But it can also be indicated by describing the fate of a family, and here too it need not arouse too much attention. The dependence of everything upon many factors which are constantly changing is an idea dangerous to dictators, and this idea can appear in many guises without giving the police anything to put their finger on. A complete description of all the processes and circumstances encountered by a man who opens a tobacco shop can strike a blow against dictatorship. Anyone who reflects upon this will soon see why. Governments which lead the masses into misery must guard against the masses’ thinking about government while they are miserable. Such governments talk a great deal about Fate. It is Fate, not they, which is to blame for all distress. Anyone who investigates the cause of the distress is arrested before he hits on the fact that the government is to blame. But it is possible to offer a general opposition to all this nonsense about Fate; it can be shown that Man’s Fate is made by men.
This is another thing that can be done in various ways. For example, one might tell the story of a peasant farm—a farm in Iceland, let us say. The whole village is talking about the curse that hovers over this farm. One peasant woman threw herself down a well; the peasant owner hanged himself. One day a marriage takes place between the peasant’s son and a girl whose dowry is several acres of good land. The curse seems to lift from the farm. The village is divided in its judgment of the cause of this fortunate turn of events. Some ascribe it to the sunny disposition of the peasant’s young son, others to the new fields which the young wife added to the farm, and which have now made it large enough to provide a livelihood.
But even in a poem which simply describes a landscape something can be achieved, if the things created by men are incorporated into the landscape.
Cunning is necessary to spread the truth.
- The high sales of Garrison Keillor's Good Poems prove that. I don't know if there have been other ages when more poetry books were being sold to a larger audience but the here and now are certainly good times to be a publishing poet in America. [back]
- During the last elections and after 9/11 the Left seemed obsessed with the Internet as a way of expressing themselves, as if somehow enough blog entries and electronic signatures in this hermetically sealed world would change anything. It is true we live with our own personal blinders but I think we a bit obsessed with our shiny toys. [back]