Аннотация:This essay examines how Brecht’s long-standing engagement with the philosophies of Confucius and Mo Zi helped to shape a materialist perspective that is far more complex than what is suggested by one of his most famous lines: “Food is the first thing. Morals follow on” (The Threepenny Opera [1928]). The essay’s primary references are two texts by Brecht, which remained fragments and are not (yet) available in English translation: his notes for a play on the Life of Confucius (1940–1941) and an extensive collection of shorter prose texts from the 1930s, first published posthumously in 1965 under the title Me-ti: Buch der Wendungen (Mo-zi: Book of turns).
