Brecht

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani cites Brecht mainly for the poem "Questions from a Worker Who Reads," to which he returns often between 2017 and 2021. "Who built Thebes of the seven gates?": the history of kings forgets those who hauled the stones, and the poem makes the anonymous producers visible12. He uses it to unlearn a history in which kings do everything3, to argue that it is peoples who make history4, and to talk about labour: it takes the mason's hand to pass from essence to existence5. He adds that gods, like kings, do not work6. He also brings up distancing, which teaches the audience to step back from the spectacle and which the phrase "social distancing" diverts from its meaning7. He also quotes the line from The Threepenny Opera about robbing a bank versus founding one, and the phrase "heaven abolished" from Life of Galileo, which in his view confirms Heidegger without lamenting it8. Finally, he notes that texts by Brecht were set to music by Eisler and Dessau.

1. 1#2.8 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?1 Aug 2017 · 1:44:50
2. 29 #14 Comment des sciences de l'histoire peuvent-elles être réelles?5 Feb 2021 · 1:00:00
3. 3#2 Lénine ou les ailes du rêve18 Apr 2021 · 9:55
4. 4L'Histoire est elle une matière ?9 Mar 2017 · 48:22
5. 5Freud1 Aug 2017 · 1:50:12
6. 69 #15 Comment des sciences de l'histoire peuvent-elles être réelles?18 Feb 2021 · 14:36
7. 7#7 • Les Attelé(e)s de la confinitude5 May 2020 · 1:20:02
8. 8La panzer-philosophie contre le cogito : néo-fascisme ou idéologie de la nature. Heidegger/Descartes5 Mar 2022 · 43:13

Summary produced automatically from 18 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.