myers@uwvax.ARPA (04/13/84)
>I read somewhere that when Karl Marx uttered his "religion is the opium >of the people" remark, he meant it in a positive way. Positive in the >sense that opium at the time of Marx was an invaluable medicine. Can >anyone shed any light on this? > Don Davis Oops, that remark was not made in "On the Jewish Question", but in "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's *Philosophy of Right*: Introduction", both written in the same year (1843), when Marx was 25. Both are products of Marx's contact with two German philosophers, Hegel and Feuerbach. Here's the first few paragraphs of the Introduction: "For Germany, the *criticism of religion* has been largely completed; and the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism. The *profane* existence of error is compromised once its *celestial oratio pro aris et focis* has been refuted. Man, who has found in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a supernatural being, only his own reflection, will no longer be tempted to find only the *semblance* of himself -- a non-human being -- where he seeks and must seek his true reality. The basis of irreligious criticism is this: *man makes religion;* religion does not make man. Religion is indeed man's self-consciousness and self- awareness so long as he has not found himself or has lost himself again. But *man* is not an abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is *the human world*, the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion which is an *inverted world consciousness*, because they are an *inverted world*. Religion is the general theory of this world, its ency- clopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual *point d'honneur*, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, its general basis of consolation and justification. It is *the fantastic realization* of the human being inasmuch as the *human being* possesses no true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly a struggle against *that world* whose spiritual *aroma* is religion. *Religious* suffering is at the same time an *expression* of real suffering and a *protest* against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment 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 men, is a demand for their *real* happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a *call to abandon a condition which requires illusions*. The criticism of religion is, therefore, *the embryonic criticism of this vale of tears* of which religion is the *halo*. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not in order that man shall bear the chain without caprice or consolation but so that he shall cast off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man so that he will think, act and fashion his reality as a man who has lost his illusions and regained his reason; so that he will revolve about himself as his own true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun about which man revolves so long as he does not revolve about himself. It is the *task of history*, therefore, once the *other-world of truth* has vanished, to establish the *truth of this world*. The immediate *task of philosophy*, which is in the service of history, is to unmask human self- alienation in its *secular form* now that it has been unmasked in its *sacred form*. Thus the criticism of heaven is transformed into the criticism of earth, the *criticism of religion* into the *criticism of law*, and the *criticism of theology* into the *criticism of politics*." ... Note the sexist language. Here are a few other quotes from this piece, where Marx discovers the proletariat as the "universal class": "To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself." "It is not enough that thought should seek to realize itself; reality must also strive towards thought." [criticism of Hegelian idealism] "Where is there, then, a *real* possibility of emancipation in Germany? *This is our reply*. A class must be formed which has *radical chains*, a class in civil society which is not a class of civil society, a class which is the dissolution of all classes, a sphere of society which has a universal character because its sufferings are universal, and which does not claim a *particular redress* because the wrong which is done to it is not a *particular wrong* but *wrong in general*." "Just as philosophy finds its *material* weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its *intellectual* weapons in philosophy." From *The Marx-Engels Reader*, editted by Robert C. Tucker. This translation by Thomas Bottomore. -- Jeff Myers ARPA: myers@wisc-rsch.arpa uucp: ..{seismo, ihnp4}!wisc-rsch!myers