Brechts attempts to shock the Bourgeoisie simply didn't
work. They go home singing about Mack the Knife,
wonderful evening in the theater. Didn't know what was
going on? Maybe, but even when bourgeoisie recognizes
attack on what are supposed to be their values, they aren't
easy to shock.
Example: Arabel (Architect and Emperor of Assyria): done
in nude, filthy language, references to drinking urine and
playing with excrement, simulated cannibalism: above all,
filled with blasphemy: pregnant nuns, Sado-masochist
priests--lines like "God's gone crazy, etc."
Reaction of audience: laughed/loved it: shocking
bourgeoisie didn't work. All this did: break down standards
in name of great art--result: not great art, but all the
horrible stuff we see on movies and T.V. today: great movie
director: one who can figure out some new and particularly
horrible way to kill people.
This was not the way it was supposed to be. 20th century
artists musicians and writers did want to break down
traditional standards--but the idea was always that this
would be done to put up something better in their place.
And this just didn't happen. Plenty was destroyed, but
nothing worthwhile came out of the ashes. Instead, the
result of most of these 20th century artistic movements has
been despair, perversion, suicide, misery--not least for the
artists themselves. You see, the people I have been talking
about, for all their talent, were not very nice people, nor
very happy people.
Pablo Picasso: tremendous success. Put out cigarettes
on bodies of young women. Brecht and Sartre even worse in
their treatment of women--and clearly unhappy campers.
Interview with Sartre a few years before his death: wealthy,
famous, successful--said it didn't mean anything at all.
Nothing he had done worthwhile.
Perhaps you think: wrong turn somewhere. And it seems
to me easy enough to see just where that wrong turn is. I
read to you from Sartre's autobiography "The Words" (p. 64).
This, it seems to me, is the wrong turn taken, not just by
Sartre, but by much of the 20th century. We live in a society
that has turned it's back on God, that thinks there's
something immoral and even illegal in talking about God.
In this class, many of you are uncomfortable whenever I
bring up religious subjects, and you think I'm doing
something wrong. But I want you to consider something
exceedingly strange about our society. I could stand up
before a class and swear like John Paul Sartre (God d----) and
nobody would bat an eyelash. I could stand up and
blaspheme like Arabel (God's gone crazy). And nobody would
do a thing about it. But suppose I talked in a different way
about God.
Suppose, instead of saying god d--- all the time as so many
people on this campus do, I used phrases like, "Glory to God",
"Praise the Lord." "Praise be to God." I'd get into trouble,
wouldn't I?
Suppose I told you that you ought to love God with all
heart, soul, mind, and strength. I'd get into trouble,
wouldn't I?
And suppose I told you that the only life worth living
was a life lived in obedience to the word of God. I'd get into
trouble.
Suppose--if you don't live such a life, you'll regret it not
just in this life, but for all eternity.
And when my students come to me, as they often do,
with tears in their eyes over the latest tragedy in their lives,
carrying burdens so heavy that it breaks my heart--suppose
I told them what I would so much like to tell them about, a
God who knows every burden they carry, and wants to dry
every tear, and to give them lives of joy and peace and
happiness--I'd get into trouble, wouldn't I?
And so I will not tell you any of those things.
But I will tell you this. Ideas have consequences.
Every
major development in history begins with a set of ideas. The
French Rev./Holocaust/Stalin's reign of terror--all began
with ideas, ideas taught and spread in university classrooms.
Some of you bored with ideas: but it makes a real dif. which
ideas win out. University a battle ground--for hearts and
minds--but more important for your souls.