Centennial Politics: On Jameson on Brecht on Method

Abstract

The starting point of the paper, which reflects on Frederic Jameson’s book Brecht and Method (London and New York: Verso, 1988), is Jameson’s assertion that there existed a Brechtian “stance” or rather “method”, which was not only doctrine, narrative or style, but all three simultaneously. – The crucial lyric form for Brecht’s stance is ballad. According to Jameson, Brecht’s storytelling is what Suvin would call a cognitive method. In his opinion, the usual philosophical and scientist prejudices about what may be cognition and method will require a thorough refurbishing, since it is impossible to reduce understanding to “pure” conceptuality. Brecht reconciled the general narrative “method” with the political interests of his class and generation by using allegory, more exactly a new type of “open” allegory. For Brecht, story is like a cognitive tool with which he tests doctrine. – The paper summarizes three central elements of Brecht’s method: 1. A number of Brecht’s categories – often marked by neologisms (stance, Grundgestus, estrangement...) – have cognitive significance on a par with, but usually much richer than, a specialized, “only conceptual” philosophy. 2. The orientation to practice or praxis is to be taught by teachers-learners, Brechtian Sages very similar to Chaucer’s Clerk of Oxenforde: “gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.” 3. Brecht was an enthusiast of communal creativity or productivity, of constructing the Novum through Marx’s “living labour”, which is diametrically opposed to the capitalist definition of productivity as that which yields profit.