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]
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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.
