Graduate Program in Health Policy and Equity, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
, Montreal, Canada.
J Med Humanit. 2024 Mar;45(1):53-77. doi: 10.1007/s10912-023-09801-5. Epub 2023 Jun 21.
Bertolt Brecht's poem "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor" is frequently cited as a means to raise awareness among health workers of the health effects of living and working conditions. Less cited is his Call to Arms trilogy of poems, which calls for class-based action to transform the capitalist economic system that sickens and kills so many. In this article, we show how "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor," with its plea for empathy for the ill, contrasts with the more activist and often militant tone of the Call to Arms trilogy: "Call to a Sick Communist," "The Sick Communist's Answer to the Comrades," and "Call to the Doctors and Nurses." We also show that, while "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor" has been applied in the training of health workers, its accusatorial tone towards health workers' complicity in the system the poem is critiquing risks alienating such workers. In contrast, the Call to Arms trilogy seeks common ground, inviting these same workers into the broader political and social fight against injustice. While we contend that the description of the sick worker as a "Communist" risks estranging these health workers, our analysis of the Call to Arms poems nevertheless indicates that their use can contribute to moving health workers' educational discourse beyond a laudable but fleeting elicitation of empathy for the ill towards a structural critique and deeper systemic understanding in order to prompt action by health workers to reform or even replace the capitalist economic system that sickens and kills so many.
贝托尔特·布莱希特的诗《工人对医生的演讲》常被引用，旨在提高卫生工作者对生活和工作条件对健康影响的认识。较少被引用的是他的《战斗三部曲》，呼吁采取基于阶级的行动，改变使如此多人患病和死亡的资本主义经济体系。在本文中，我们展示了《工人对医生的演讲》如何通过呼吁对病人表示同情，与《战斗三部曲》更具激进性且常常好斗的基调形成对比：《给生病的共产主义者的召唤》《生病的共产主义者对同志的回应》和《给医生和护士的召唤》。我们还表明，尽管《工人对医生的演讲》已应用于卫生工作者的培训中，但它对卫生工作者在其批判的制度中所扮演的共谋角色的指责性语气，可能会使这些卫生工作者感到疏远。相比之下，《战斗三部曲》则寻求共同点，邀请这些卫生工作者加入更广泛的反对不公正的政治和社会斗争。虽然我们认为将患病工人描述为“共产主义者”可能会使这些卫生工作者感到疏远，但我们对《战斗三部曲》的分析表明，它们的使用可以有助于使卫生工作者的教育话语超越对病人表示同情的短暂而值得称赞的阶段，转向对结构的批判和更深入的系统理解，以促使卫生工作者采取行动来改革甚至取代使如此多人患病和死亡的资本主义经济体系。
