lected books. That he is selected as a figure worthy of writing a play about, and his dilemma much discussed, seems to indicate that there is a message here that the culture values.
There are a number of possibilities as to what that message could be. It could be that the culture is lending support to the idea of holding on to one's truth, while bending to authority in order to preserve life. This would be fundamentally an anti-martyr stance, supporting the idea that life is more important than ideas.
It could also simply be that there are things that the culture has determined are worth dying for, and other things that are seen as less central to human value. While Saint Joan is valued for asserting her truth in the face of the Inquisition, Galileo is not condemned for denying his truth.
Brecht gives some indication of the reasons for that there is a difference between the two. Galileo can be viewed as the expedient man, as Andrea viewed him (Bentley 121-122). Brecht himself wrote a long discussion about writing the truth and the uses of truth which seems to support this interpretation. In his discussion, he concluded that the person is responsible for disseminating the truth as well as writing it, and of being cunning in that dissemination so that the truth is not simply lost. His concern is effectiveness as well as morality. He is not saying that it is morally right in some abstract sense to disguise the truth, but that it supports the individual's effectiveness in spreading that truth to the largest number of people, which is the desired end (Bentley 141-150).
There are many way in which the shaping of the story of Galileo supports mainstream contemporary culture. First, the story supports the importance of science and scientific truth. On the other hand, it also supports the authority of the powerful, advising the individual to stay alive to fight another day. In addition, it is congruent with the centr...