by Bertolt Brecht
Copyright 1966
This book, as the introduction delineates, was originally written in Fascist Germany whose attitude towards science and knowledge in general paralleled the ignorance of the Papacy in Galileo’s era. Then in a post-atomic-bomb world with two superpowers on the brink, Brecht adapted this play into a new set of concerns about the “fruit” of knowledge. As such, in our era of Trumpian ignorance and North Korean nuclear ambition (two parties who just today sat down in Singapore), this work remains relevant to contemporary life. The sophistication required in this thematic rework over fifteen years transformed this book into a more readable and more timeless piece.
Yes, this book is not non-fiction technically as it is historical fiction. No one knows the details of what Galileo thought and spoke a long time ago. These remain inaccessible and buried. Nonetheless, historical fiction will be chronicled in this blog as it provides insight and access into situations of history that might remain obscured were it not for the efforts of novelists and playwrights.
The plot in this work was straightforward enough. It described Galileo interacting with family, the ruling class, and the clergy in the ancient Italian city-states. Eventually, papal forces move him to recant his discovery that the earth revolves around the sun in exchange for the ability to live a normal life. (Jupiter’s multiple moons play a curiously prominent role in this narrative, a role I do not think I fully grasp.) His recantation obviously caused him to lose popularity among those in favor of enlightenment, but in Brecht’s telling at least, he remained popular among the people for thinking like them instead of the scholastics. Of course, Galileo won the war as few today would side with a earth-centered view of the universe.
As suggested above, this book housed two dominant themes: The triumph of science over ignorance and the care needed to make science serve the social good. In the latter theme, Brecht tended in a quasi-Marxist direction (which could also be considered merely populist or even democratic) that the “people” were/are the final judge of the good.
I find it most curious to wonder why and how people of the clerical set would object to the point of threatening death to Galileo over the issue of what lay at the center of the universe. To them, it threatened the medieval order established in Thomas Aquinas that God dwelt in the heavens and that the Pope (and the clergy through him) were centrally governing the world. The people could not and should not think for themselves. It is Galileo’s, Brecht’s, and my contention that people need to care for this world (in the face of Fascism, atomic bombs, or Trumpianism) with responsibility and reason. Sometimes, defeats might come along this path, but the battle must be won by each generation if we are to persevere as the human race.