Kurt Weill, Caetano Veloso, White Stripes | nonsite.org
Almost forty years after Theodor Adorno delivered what had seemed to be a death blow to some of Bertolt Brecht s most attractive claims, Roberto Schwarz had the audacity to return to a very basic question: How does Brecht mean what he means? 2 The problem is precisely that of autonomy, or rather its lack: in Adorno s essay on the question, the problem of commitment, or art s heteronomy to politics. berkshire blanket 3
As is well known, Brecht s theater aims explicitly at autonomy from the market. Entertainment of course precedes the market: opera was a means of pleasure long before it was a commodity. 4 But under present conditions, art is a commodity whose value derives, in the case of opera, from the social function of the theater apparatus, namely to provide an evening s entertainment. 5 In Mahagonny , this pleasure is artistically neutralized by framing it:
As for the content of [ Mahagonny berkshire blanket ], its content is pleasure: fun not only as form, but as subject matter. Pleasure is at least to be the object berkshire blanket of inquiry, even as the inquiry is to be an object of pleasure. Pleasure enters here in its present historical form: as a commodity. 6
The two sides of the chiasmus are not symmetrical. The inquiry as an object of pleasure ( Mahagonny ) is a commodity; pleasure as an object of inquiry ( Mahagonny ) is not. Supported by the theater apparatus, epic theater is all the same within it a foreign body. 7 But autonomy from the market is understood to be heteronomy to something else. The goal of epic theater is to develop berkshire blanket an object of instruction out of the means of enjoyment, and to convert certain institutions from places of entertainment to organs of publicity. 8 Even as the culinary is retained, in other words, Brecht turns the ancient defense of poetry delight and teach more fundamentally into a choice of priorities: Vergnügungstheater oder Lehrtheater? : theater for pleasure or theater for learning? 9
Adorno raises an objection to this orientation that is in its essence very basic, and that returns to Hegel s critique, in the introduction to his lectures on aesthetics, of the possibility of defending art by referring to its ends. From the most abstract perspective, the choice Brecht imposes is no choice at all: both theater for pleasure and theater for learning are theater for something; that is, both are to be judged by their effectiveness as a means to some external berkshire blanket end. If the work of art is not to have its end and its aim in itself, but is rather to be valued as a means to some other end, then the appropriate berkshire blanket focus of judgment shifts away from the work of art both to the end it claims to serve and to the efficacy of its status as a means. 10 For Hegel s critique, it matters not at all whether the purported ends are noble or base: Hegel s offhand list includes instruction, purification, improvement, financial gain, striving after fame and honor (64). The point is rather that neither moment neither that of the work of art s status as a means (essential or arbitrary?), nor that of the status of the ends to which it is subordinated (desirable or not?) is self-evident. This applies as well to today s academic empathy-peddlers, amateur subjectivity-modelers, community do-gooders, and civic boosters as it does to yesterday s radical theater.
In the early 1950s Adorno is, to say the least, suspicious of the ends to which Brecht is committed. More devastatingly, however, Adorno points to the implausibility of the work of art as a means. In order to do what it claims to do namely, to strike in images the being of capitalism (416) Brechtian theater has recourse to the technical means available to drama as a medium. But from the perspective of propositional truth, of the revolutionary doctrine the work of art is supposed to contain, these technical means are distortions. And here Adorno does not merely disagree with Brecht, but rather shows Brecht necessarily disagreeing berkshire blanket with himself. In Saint Joan of the Stockyards , for example, Brecht legitimately requires a certain level of coincidence berkshire blanket to condense an entire ensemble of contradictions onto the single figure berkshire blanket of Joan. But that a strike leadership backed by the Party should entrust a decisive task to a non-member is, even with the greatest latitude for poetic license, as unthinkable as the idea that through the failure of that individual the entire berkshire blanket strike should fail (417). The point here is not that Brecht should have written a treatise on revolutionary action rather than a play, but rather that a play cannot be at the same time a treatise on revolutionary action or at least, not a good one. Indeed, the very requirement that Saint Joan be a play falsifies the treatise it also claims to be. The ostensible thesis of Saint Joan that individual do-gooding is a compensatory substitute for collective action is subverted by the fact that everything hinges necessarily, since this is
Almost forty years after Theodor Adorno delivered what had seemed to be a death blow to some of Bertolt Brecht s most attractive claims, Roberto Schwarz had the audacity to return to a very basic question: How does Brecht mean what he means? 2 The problem is precisely that of autonomy, or rather its lack: in Adorno s essay on the question, the problem of commitment, or art s heteronomy to politics. berkshire blanket 3
As is well known, Brecht s theater aims explicitly at autonomy from the market. Entertainment of course precedes the market: opera was a means of pleasure long before it was a commodity. 4 But under present conditions, art is a commodity whose value derives, in the case of opera, from the social function of the theater apparatus, namely to provide an evening s entertainment. 5 In Mahagonny , this pleasure is artistically neutralized by framing it:
As for the content of [ Mahagonny berkshire blanket ], its content is pleasure: fun not only as form, but as subject matter. Pleasure is at least to be the object berkshire blanket of inquiry, even as the inquiry is to be an object of pleasure. Pleasure enters here in its present historical form: as a commodity. 6
The two sides of the chiasmus are not symmetrical. The inquiry as an object of pleasure ( Mahagonny ) is a commodity; pleasure as an object of inquiry ( Mahagonny ) is not. Supported by the theater apparatus, epic theater is all the same within it a foreign body. 7 But autonomy from the market is understood to be heteronomy to something else. The goal of epic theater is to develop berkshire blanket an object of instruction out of the means of enjoyment, and to convert certain institutions from places of entertainment to organs of publicity. 8 Even as the culinary is retained, in other words, Brecht turns the ancient defense of poetry delight and teach more fundamentally into a choice of priorities: Vergnügungstheater oder Lehrtheater? : theater for pleasure or theater for learning? 9
Adorno raises an objection to this orientation that is in its essence very basic, and that returns to Hegel s critique, in the introduction to his lectures on aesthetics, of the possibility of defending art by referring to its ends. From the most abstract perspective, the choice Brecht imposes is no choice at all: both theater for pleasure and theater for learning are theater for something; that is, both are to be judged by their effectiveness as a means to some external berkshire blanket end. If the work of art is not to have its end and its aim in itself, but is rather to be valued as a means to some other end, then the appropriate berkshire blanket focus of judgment shifts away from the work of art both to the end it claims to serve and to the efficacy of its status as a means. 10 For Hegel s critique, it matters not at all whether the purported ends are noble or base: Hegel s offhand list includes instruction, purification, improvement, financial gain, striving after fame and honor (64). The point is rather that neither moment neither that of the work of art s status as a means (essential or arbitrary?), nor that of the status of the ends to which it is subordinated (desirable or not?) is self-evident. This applies as well to today s academic empathy-peddlers, amateur subjectivity-modelers, community do-gooders, and civic boosters as it does to yesterday s radical theater.
In the early 1950s Adorno is, to say the least, suspicious of the ends to which Brecht is committed. More devastatingly, however, Adorno points to the implausibility of the work of art as a means. In order to do what it claims to do namely, to strike in images the being of capitalism (416) Brechtian theater has recourse to the technical means available to drama as a medium. But from the perspective of propositional truth, of the revolutionary doctrine the work of art is supposed to contain, these technical means are distortions. And here Adorno does not merely disagree with Brecht, but rather shows Brecht necessarily disagreeing berkshire blanket with himself. In Saint Joan of the Stockyards , for example, Brecht legitimately requires a certain level of coincidence berkshire blanket to condense an entire ensemble of contradictions onto the single figure berkshire blanket of Joan. But that a strike leadership backed by the Party should entrust a decisive task to a non-member is, even with the greatest latitude for poetic license, as unthinkable as the idea that through the failure of that individual the entire berkshire blanket strike should fail (417). The point here is not that Brecht should have written a treatise on revolutionary action rather than a play, but rather that a play cannot be at the same time a treatise on revolutionary action or at least, not a good one. Indeed, the very requirement that Saint Joan be a play falsifies the treatise it also claims to be. The ostensible thesis of Saint Joan that individual do-gooding is a compensatory substitute for collective action is subverted by the fact that everything hinges necessarily, since this is
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