29th July 2010

Brecht’s Law

Bertolt Brecht

Eats first, morals after.

Arguably the most basic law of all, this is a line from Berthold Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1928). Another translation is “Grub first then ethics.” Brecht was a revolutionary Marxist who left the comforts of Hollywood to return to his homeland in (East) Germany in 1948. It is hard to hold his politics against him, however, considering that he also managed in The Threepenny Opera to ask the question some sixty years in advance of the savings and loan scandals “What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?”


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