This quote seems to have surfaced out of nowhere and is making the rounds of leftist blogs and Facebook pages. I just checked about twenty, all from within the last six weeks. None of them give cites or links. It doesn't seem to appear on any "Famous Quotes" sites. One blog suggested it was from the thirties, but even if it was later, I have a hard time believing anyone who died in 1956 would be attacking "multinational corporations", a leftist boogey man that didn't really emerge until the sixties. If anything, a postwar European Marxist would have attacked "American" corporations, no?
But whatever, it's really nothing more than the old Stalinist line about everything being political, a concept that led to endless oppressions and bloodshed justified by the visceral contempt for "the people" the quote is clearly trying to fuel.
Stalinist line? I suspect it long predates Stalin--indeed, I would suggest Aristotle and Plato expressed similar sentiments. That's what an "idiot" is, after all--to the Athenians, an "idiot" was someone so dim and/or uneducated and/or self-absorbed that they took no part in public life, failed to be citizens.
But the idea of politics as a pervasive thing that applies at the personal level had the most impact in North America in its expression by the great feminist movement of the 70s--"The personal is political".
It might not be a real quote, or may perhaps be one that's been mangled in some way--I do have doubts about "multinational corporations". I doubt it's deliberately made up and attributed for propaganda reasons--if you were doing that, why make it Brecht, a guy nobody except leftists have even heard of? But it's a sentiment worth expressing.
And that's exactly the way, government leaders want citizens to stay. Uninformed and ignorant, of the devious corruption that surrounds them.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we suppose they want to monitor the internet? They hate their dastardly deeds, to be posted on the internet, for the entire world to see.
This quote seems to have surfaced out of nowhere and is making the rounds of leftist blogs and Facebook pages. I just checked about twenty, all from within the last six weeks. None of them give cites or links. It doesn't seem to appear on any "Famous Quotes" sites. One blog suggested it was from the thirties, but even if it was later, I have a hard time believing anyone who died in 1956 would be attacking "multinational corporations", a leftist boogey man that didn't really emerge until the sixties. If anything, a postwar European Marxist would have attacked "American" corporations, no?
ReplyDeleteBut whatever, it's really nothing more than the old Stalinist line about everything being political, a concept that led to endless oppressions and bloodshed justified by the visceral contempt for "the people" the quote is clearly trying to fuel.
Stalinist line? I suspect it long predates Stalin--indeed, I would suggest Aristotle and Plato expressed similar sentiments. That's what an "idiot" is, after all--to the Athenians, an "idiot" was someone so dim and/or uneducated and/or self-absorbed that they took no part in public life, failed to be citizens.
ReplyDeleteBut the idea of politics as a pervasive thing that applies at the personal level had the most impact in North America in its expression by the great feminist movement of the 70s--"The personal is political".
It might not be a real quote, or may perhaps be one that's been mangled in some way--I do have doubts about "multinational corporations". I doubt it's deliberately made up and attributed for propaganda reasons--if you were doing that, why make it Brecht, a guy nobody except leftists have even heard of? But it's a sentiment worth expressing.
It's been around since 2006 at least:
ReplyDeletehttp://fontedasvirtudes.blogspot.ca/2006/04/politische-analphabet.html
OK, that post and others have "Der schlechteste Analphabet..."
ReplyDeleteBut there is also "“Der schlimmste Analphabet..." here:
http://www.diedenker.org/inhalte/brecht-zum-politischen-analphabeten/
There a reference given is (Bertolt Brecht, Der Politische Analphabet)
And it may refer to multinational companies, someone who knows German might be able to figure it out.
This one gives the reference and the year 1934:
http://de-kapitalismus.blogspot.ca/2012/04/los-indignados-y-la-defensa-de-la.html
Thanks for posting this. I'm going to put it on my Facebook page.
ReplyDelete