Opium of the people
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"Religion is the opium of the people" (translated from the German "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes") is one of the most frequently quoted statements of Karl Marx, from the introduction of his 1843 work Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right which was actually subsequently released one year later in Marx' own journal Deutsch-Französischen Jahrbücher—a collaboration with Arnold Ruge. Here is what Marx said, in context:
- Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
- Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. 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. [Emphasis added]
- 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. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Explanation
This quote is very often taken out of context and misinterpreted. Marx is not saying that religion is a tool used by the bourgeoisie to keep the masses quiet and complacent (although this is what some of his Young Hegelian contemporaries thought.) Instead, Marx calls religion the "soul of the soulless conditions, the heart of the heartless world." It is an expression -- a minifestation, a mirror -- of a condition of suffering. But instead of focusing directly on the causes of suffering, religion -- like opium -- works on the imagination to generate illusory causes and illusory solutions to human suffering. The causes of suffering in Christianity are Original Sin and Devils. The solutions to human suffering is a Heaven in an after-life for believers.For Marx, religion is something that the oppressed people cling to and delude themselves with simply because they have no idea of the real causes and solutions to their suffering. These causes and solutions are economic.
When Marx wrote this text, opium was a very popular medicine and recreational drug. Marx says that religion is a way the oppressed workers can convince themselves that their lives are worth living, though it is an illusion, a fantasy, like an opium dream.
From a wider perspective, anything which relocates the focus of attention from the real causes of and solutions to human suffering is metaphorically an "opiate." Marx, as a Young Hegelian, was rebelling against the religious orientation of German educational institutions. So, in a wider sense, educational institutions, in so far as they focus on religious and other irrelevancies, are also acting as opiates of the people.
References
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