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"Opiate of the masses": is this phrase misunderstood?
Karl Marx did use the phrase "religion is the opiate of the masses", but in his day, opium was mainly used not as a recreational drug, but as a painkiller for the sick. He claimed religion gives comfort to people who need it badly.
Here's the phrase in context:
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions."
Now atheists, I am sure few of you care about what Karl Marx wrote, but I do know that you wouldn't like to inadvertently be caught workin' in the quote mine.
Suggested category:
Health > General Health Care > Pain & Pain Management
icomeblood:
He didn't claim religion is a good way of keeping people happy, he claimed that until you can make people happy for real, you are going to have to put up with religion.
6 Answers
- skeptikLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
Karl Marx wrote that in 1848 in London. In the period between the two "Opium Wars" between England and China. Claiming that Marx was talking about medicinal use, rather than recreational use is either wildly uninformed or the worst kind of historical revisionism.
There is no quote mining involved here at all. Marx knew that the happiness that people got from opium was an illusion, and that it destroyed people's lives.
He meant the exact same thing about religion.
Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_wars - 1 decade ago
Ah, wiki, an unimpeachable source. In Marx's day the misuse of opium was rampant. Morphine and later Heroin were both developed to try and make a medically worthwhile painkiller that wouldn't have the recreational uses associated with opium (of course, these efforts failed). London and Vienna were both filled with notorious opium dens. Even if Marx's sense of the phrase is that religion masks the pain of the proletariat, it's not a positive portrayal by any means.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Opiates are used for the same purpose today as they were back then--to magically make all your pains, problems, and concerns "disappear" without really changing your situation. Sounds like religion to me.
I don't get what you are trying to say...that Marx meant religion is a good way to keep people happy?
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- Anonymous1 decade ago
The ideology of Marx resulted in long, bloody, horrific reign of terror which claimed 70,000,000 million lives. (between Stalin and Mao) Former USSR is the only country in recent history to outlaw religion. I am happy to see he still has apologist amen corner working on his behalf. The "Atehists did not murder in name of Atheism" is a debunked post-structuralist argument.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Even if he meant that it gives comfort, how prophetic was it to suggest that it can be an addiction as well. And a dangerous addiction at that.