[lbo-talk] master's tools/Who wants to pluck flowers?

[Arash]

Oops, I thought it was just a confused gardening metaphor.  On Marx's opium
quote, my father used to say that to me a lot when I was a kid during any
newsreports on religious fundamentalist movements.  I would always think,
isn't opium "the opium" of the masses?  I guess in generalizing from the
person to the masses it makes sense, opium is to the person as what religion
is to the masses, but I always thought it was a weird way to put it.  I
didn't understand what it would make the real opium users in relation to the
masses, true believers?  Would this qualify as a nonsensical metaphor?
Maybe I just have a low metaphor appitude.

Arash


>It's from Marx's Introduction to the Critique of
>Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1844), and is connected
>with Marx's famous discussion of religion as the opium
>od the masses.