People on the internet are saying it’s not a condemnation of religion and to Marx opium means medicine, Im confused help me bear website!
Edit: what did Karl Marx think opium was?
People on the internet are saying it’s not a condemnation of religion and to Marx opium means medicine, Im confused help me bear website!
Edit: what did Karl Marx think opium was?
The quote means something like this: “Religion is used as a way to escape the crushing reality of the world and dull the meaninglessness of being a common person”
Imagine if you broke your leg. You’d very much welcome some opium (or painkillers in a modern setting) but we all know the solution is to go to the hospital and get it fixed. Marx is warning against mistaking the lack of pain for healing.
Religion is a way to soothe the pain of capitalism/feudalism but it would be better for that pain not to exist.
That’s not exactly Marx’s critique of religion. Marx was saying that by surrendering to a “higher power”, people who are miserable under capitalism forget that it is the human agency that drives societal change.
This is the materialist critique of religion. It is an impediment to progress not because it is “backward” or conservative, but because people have to give up their agency in the process.
However it should be noted that with the rise of “modernity” in Europe, with the idea that “man makes his own history”, the interpretation of Christianity that prevailed at the time, was one in which the message the message of Christ was one that encourages human beings to the actors of their own history. That is how Christianity and modernity in Europe could exist at the same time, the religion of Christianity was re-interpreted and adapted to the political and social needs of the time in the region.
It actually incredible how many pastors, especially modern day protestant evangelical church pastors, do not understand this concept and retreat back into dogmatic beliefs. Literally going back to Middle Age interpretations of Christianity.
One could argue - from a liberation theology perspective - that you can have (and perhaps even need) both.
Hard to do a revolution with a broken leg. You need something to soothe the pain if you want to get back into the fight.
But opium won’t fix your leg, you will be a one-legged person in a war.
No. But it’ll keep you from thrashing in pain while they set the splint.