Opium of the people

This article is about Karl Marx's statement. For Slipknot's song, see Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses).

"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" and is often rendered as "religion... is the opiate of the masses."

The quotation originates from the introduction of his work A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, published posthumously. The introduction (written in 1843) was published in 1844 in Marx's own journal Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher, a collaboration with Arnold Ruge.

The full quote from Karl Marx translates as: "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". Often quoted, the interpretation of the metaphor in its context has received much less attention.^[1] Some other people have used similar phrases.

Marx

Main article: Marxism and religion

The quotation, in context, reads as follows (emphasis added):

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. 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 encyclopaedic 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.

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.^[2]

Novalis

In 1798, Novalis wrote in "Blüthenstaub" ("Pollen"):^[3]

Ihre sogenannte Religion wirkt bloß wie ein Opiat reizend, betäubend, Schmerzen aus Schwäche stillend.
(Their so-called religion works simply as an opiate—stimulating; numbing; quelling pain by means of weakness.)

Heinrich Heine

In 1840, Heinrich Heine also used the same analogy, in his essay on Ludwig Börne:

Welcome be a religion that pours into the bitter chalice of the suffering human species some sweet, soporific drops of spiritual opium, some drops of love, hope and faith.^[4]

Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley, a canon of the Church of England, wrote this four years after Marx:^[5]

We have used the Bible as if it were a mere special constable's hand book, an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded, a mere book to keep the poor in order.^[6]

Lenin

Vladimir Lenin, speaking of religion in Novaya Zhizn in 1905,^[7] alluded to Marx's earlier comments (emphasis added):

Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

References

↑ McKinnon, AM. (2005). 'Reading ‘Opium of the People’: Expression, Protest and the Dialectics of Religion'. Critical Sociology, vol 31, no. 1-2, pp. 15-38.
↑ Marx, K. 1976. Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Collected Works, v. 3. New York.
↑ O'Brien, William Arctander (1995). Novalis, Signs of Revolution. Duke University Press. p. 154. ISBN 0-8223-1519-X.
↑ Heine, Heinrich Ludwig Börne - a Memorial
↑ Reader in Marxist Philosophy by Howard Selsam, Harry Martel(1987)
↑ F. D. Maurice (Leaders Of The Church 1800-1900)- C. F. G. Masterman (1907). pp. 65-6
↑ Novaya Zhizn No. 28, December 3, 1905, as quoted in Marxists Internet Archive