[lbo-talk] Re: Master's tools

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Fri Dec 12 00:10:16 PST 2003


I can't quite make out who wrote:

It was pointed out to me that, in Marx's day, opium didn't have those
> extreme connotations. In his day, opium and its derivatives were
> prescribed as a general pain-killer and relaxant, and regarded as
> harmful and as dangerous as aspirin. The quote is one of the few that's
> become _more_ provocative as time's gone by-- but Marx wasn't being much
> harsher than drawing an analogy to, say, Bactine or Excedrin.

Not quite. De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" came out in the 1830's or thereabouts and was quite well known. A sample:

"The

opium-eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations; he wishes

and longs as earnestly as ever to realize what he believes possible, and

feels to be exacted by duty; but his intellectual apprehension of what is

possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, but even of

power to attempt. He lies under the weight of incubus and night-mare; he

lies in sight of all that he would fain perform, just as a man forcibly

confined to his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who is

compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some object of his

tenderest love: -- he curses the spells which chain him down from motion;

he would lay down his life if he might but get up and walk; but he is

powerless as an infant, and cannot even attempt to rise."

Does this sound like Excedrin to you?

Joanna



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