Progress vs. Tradition Theme Analysis

Both Brecht and Galileo lived in societies that were characterized by the desire to do things differently than they’d been done in the past. In Galileo’s time, science introduced knowledge and ideas that were at odds with centuries of religious teachings about the nature of the world. In Brecht’s day, this desire for change was political. People were tired of wars and the political systems that caused them: they wanted change and some believed that communism could provide it. By staging a play about Galileo’s life in the era of communism’s ascendance, Brecht suggests that history will view the struggle for communism in the same favorable light that contemporary people see Galileo’s struggle for scientific knowledge against a repressive religious hierarchy.

Brecht suggests that people tend to view favorably what aligns with reason. Therefore, he believes that even ideas that are at odds with centuries of tradition and “common sense” will ultimately be accepted if those ideas are more rational than the ones they strive to replace. For Galileo, whom Brecht endows with the same belief, proof of this inclination toward rationality can be seen in the ability of simple demonstrations, made with apples and wooden models, to teach complex ideas. Andrea, who initially lacked the education necessary to understand the mathematics behind Galileo’s ideas, was easily convinced by Galileo’s models that the Aristotelean concept of the universe made less sense than Copernicus’ system. That basic inclination toward reason, Galileo says, is found everywhere from “the horny-handed old woman who gives her mule an extra bundle of hay on the eve of a journey” to “the sea captain who allows for storms and doldrums when laying in stores,” and it is an irresistible power that will eventually persuade even the most stubborn people of the truth.

Building on this, Life of Galileo suggests that technological advancement and an increasing trust in empiricism means that human reason can be more easily directed. When Copernicus confronted the ideas of Aristotle, he did so on purely mathematical grounds. If one couldn’t understand the mathematics behind his proofs, then one simply had to take his arguments on faith—precisely what had been done for centuries with Aristotle. Without observable proof, Copernicus’ arguments remained just a theory. Thanks to the telescope, however, Galileo could provide visible proof of phenomena that could otherwise only be described mathematically. While his demonstrations and models were convincing to some, the incontrovertible evidence of the eyes, in the end, was sufficient to persuade all. For Brecht, who sought to prove Marx’s theories to his audience, observable proof of communism’s viability was found not in a technological advancement, but rather through experiment. The Soviet Union had recently turned the theories of Karl Marx into proof of the viability of communism, and countries throughout the world sought to replicate their findings.

Brecht makes this parallel concrete when he has Galileo equate politics and science in an odd speech to a former student. In it, he says that “the poverty of the many is as old as the hills, and from pulpit and lecture platform we hear that it is as hard as the hills to get rid of.” But the “new art of doubting” that reason has created has caused people to train their telescopes not just on the stars, but also on “their tormentors, the princes, landlords and priests.” And just as ordinary people had used their reason to see the flaws of Aristotle’s time-honored models, so too would they use reason to see the flaws in the systems of power which had long oppressed them. Those systems, Brecht believed, would in turn be replaced by ones that made more sense for everyone, just as Galileo’s system replaced Aristotle’s.

For Galileo, then, knowledge really was a power that anyone could wield in the pursuit of a better world. In this way, Brecht uses Galileo as a stand-in for himself: both men present themselves as iconoclasts, standing against centuries of inherited wisdom. Both men make that stand in the name of the common man, whom they understand would benefit the most from this emancipation of ideas. And, perhaps most importantly, both men speak directly towards that audience of ordinary people. Brecht’s fictional Galileo writes all of his scientific tracts in Italian, rather than in Latin, so that people from a variety of backgrounds can read them (the real Galileo did this as well). Similarly, Brecht himself wrote in an easy-to-understand German and made sure that English translations of his work were equally accessible. Even his theoretical works on the theater, which tackle very complex topics, are easy to read.