Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts." - Meaning and context.">
"What Keeps Mankind Alive?" Act 2, sc. 6
“

For once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.

— Bertolt Brecht

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "For once you must try not to shirk the facts:
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts." in the context of ""What Keeps Mankind Alive?" Act 2, sc. 6" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Bertolt Brecht" (Quotes, 1923–1938, The Threepenny Opera (1928): Quotations from Die Dreigroschenoper using primarily the translation by Desmond Vesey and Eric Bentley (1949; 1960) ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Bertolt Brecht

About Bertolt Brecht

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), commonly known as Bertolt Brecht, was a German Marxist dramatist, stage director and poet. He is remembered for the Distancing effect practice in performing arts (known in German as Verfremdungseffekt or V-Effekt).