Abstract In his book City of Quartz from 1990, the urban theorist Mike Davis criticized Bertolt Brecht for having failed to explore the “real-life Mahagonny” and “thriving local labor movement” of Los Angeles while he lived there from 1941 to 1947. For someone who considered himself a dialectical thinker, Brecht showed surprisingly little interest in the specific historical dialectic that had shaped Los Angeles. Shortly after moving there, he had already accepted the myth of the “City of Angels” as a hellish materialization of advanced capitalism. The purpose of this essay, which mostly draws upon Brecht’s journal entries, is not to refute Davis’s assessment but to take a closer look at Brecht’s preconceptions and perceptions of American culture and politics to better grasp why he largely ignored, or refused to engage with, the politically progressive developments and working-class movement in a place where he spent six years of his life.

中文翻译：

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布莱希特在洛杉矶——“在这座随和的陵墓中”

摘要 在 1990 年出版的《石英之城》一书中，城市理论家迈克·戴维斯批评贝托尔特·布莱希特在 1941 年至 1947 年居住在洛杉矶期间未能探索洛杉矶的“现实生活中的 Mahagonny”和“蓬勃发展的当地劳工运动”。作为一个自认为是辩证思想家的人，布莱希特对塑造洛杉矶的特定历史辩证法表现出令人惊讶的兴趣。搬到那里后不久，他就已经接受了“天使之城”的神话，认为这是先进资本主义的地狱般的具体化。这篇文章主要借鉴了布莱希特的日记条目，其目的不是反驳戴维斯的评估，而是仔细研究布莱希特对美国文化和政治的先入之见和看法，以更好地理解为什么他在很大程度上忽视或拒绝参与，