Marx empathetic, pain, comfort, historical misreading

Marx's " Religion is the opium of the people" is out of context

Karl Marx’s phrase “Religion is the opium of the people,” especially as it’s framed through the lens of political economy education and propaganda, was out of context. How? Why? Why not?

Marx’s insight is profound only when treated with complexity — not as a blunt anti-religious weapon, nor as a justification for spiritual suppression. Both Marx and religion seek to understand human suffering, and the best critiques are born not from blind rejection, but empathetic engagement. Liberation begins not by deleting belief, but by giving people space to choose freely what they believe in.

1. Misreading Marx’s Tone: Religion as Both Pain and Protest

Rebuttal: Marx's original phrase is often ripped from its nuanced context. He didn’t call religion “a poison” or “a drug of delusion” in simple negative terms. Instead, he wrote:

This is not outright dismissal, but rather compassionate critique. Marx acknowledged that religion provides comfort, identity, and even protest for the suffering — not merely stupefaction. To reduce his words to propaganda for atheism is to miss his empathetic dialectic.

---

2. “Opium” Wasn’t a Negative Word in 1843

Rebuttal: In Marx’s time, opium was a respected painkiller, not yet burdened with modern associations of addiction and escapism. So when he said “opium of the people,” he likely meant it eases pain, softens suffering, and helps people endure brutal systems — even if it also veils them from confronting root causes. To weaponize the word as if it simply means “toxic delusion” is a historical misreading.

###

H/t: 

APAD: Religion is the opium of the people

 

來源: 7grizzly 於 2025-04-12 08:00:30 [檔案] [博客] [舊帖] [給我悄悄話] 閱讀數 : 3039 (8927 bytes)

 

字體:調大/重置/調小 | 加入書簽 | 打印 | 所有跟帖 | 加跟貼 | 當前最熱討論主題

本帖於 2025-04-12 09:21:12 時間, 由普通用戶 7grizzly 編輯

Background:

   This is probably the best-known quotation by Karl Marx, the German economist

   and Communist political philosopher. The origin German text, in Critique of

   Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843 is:

 

     Die Religion... ist das Opium des Volkes

 

   This has been translated variously as `religion is the opiate of the masses',

   `religion is the opium of the masses' and, in a version which German scholars

   prefer `religion is the opium of the people'. The context the phrase appears

   is this:

 

     "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless

     world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium

     of the people."

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The phrase reminded me of middle-school political economy when traditional

Chinese religions, if they had ever achieved the status of spiritual opium among

the masses, had hitherto been wiped out during the revolutions. Our generation

were "born under the red flag and raised in honey jars," as the saying went. The

new China had saved us from cults, drugs, and a multitude of other harms. I was

grateful, as I should be, but obvious not enough. I remembered barely passing

the course by tenacious rote-learning, and it was with dubious luck that I did or

I might not get out of the country to see for myself.