"Science knows only one commandment - contribute to science"
About this Quote
Brecht frames science less as a cathedral of truth than as a factory with a single posted rule: keep the line moving. The phrasing borrows the moral gravity of religion - "commandment" is doing heavy work here - only to strip it of everything religion typically promises: consolation, personal salvation, even ethical guidance. What replaces them is productivity. Science, in this view, is not a set of beliefs you assent to but a system you feed.
The intent is pointedly double-edged. Brecht admired rational inquiry as a weapon against mystification, yet he distrusted any institution that pretends to be above politics. By giving science its own "commandment", he satirizes the way modernity can smuggle a new priesthood in under the banner of neutrality. The line reads like praise until you feel the chill: if the only virtue is contribution, then conscience becomes optional, and harm can be filed under "progress". It's a compact warning about instrumental reason - the kind that can build vaccines and gas chambers with the same clean, managerial logic.
Context matters: Brecht wrote in the shadow of total war, fascism, and the accelerating marriage between research and the state. In that world, "contribute" is not innocent; it hints at conscription. The subtext is about complicity: once science defines its own morality as output, the individual is pressured to measure themselves by usefulness, not responsibility. Brecht's genius is making the sentence sound like a motto you could hang in a lab, then revealing, in the aftertaste, how easily mottos turn people into instruments.
The intent is pointedly double-edged. Brecht admired rational inquiry as a weapon against mystification, yet he distrusted any institution that pretends to be above politics. By giving science its own "commandment", he satirizes the way modernity can smuggle a new priesthood in under the banner of neutrality. The line reads like praise until you feel the chill: if the only virtue is contribution, then conscience becomes optional, and harm can be filed under "progress". It's a compact warning about instrumental reason - the kind that can build vaccines and gas chambers with the same clean, managerial logic.
Context matters: Brecht wrote in the shadow of total war, fascism, and the accelerating marriage between research and the state. In that world, "contribute" is not innocent; it hints at conscription. The subtext is about complicity: once science defines its own morality as output, the individual is pressured to measure themselves by usefulness, not responsibility. Brecht's genius is making the sentence sound like a motto you could hang in a lab, then revealing, in the aftertaste, how easily mottos turn people into instruments.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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