>Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
>
>by Karl Marx
>Deutsch-Französische Jahrbucher, February, 1844
>
>For Germany, the criticism of religion has been
>essentially completed, and the criticism of
>religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.
>
>The profane existence of error is compromised as
>soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis
>["speech for the altars and hearths"] has been
>refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection
>of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven,
>where he sought a superman, will no longer feel
>disposed to find the mere appearance of himself,
>the non-man ["Unmensch"], where he seeks and
>must seek his true reality.
>
>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, it 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.
Apparently, judging from this, Marx doesn't seem to have grasped the full significance of religion as a *vehicle* for societies' general theory of the world. Religion cannot be merely *the* general theory of the world of course, since there are many distinct religious theories. What is common is that religion, in the sense of a vehicle for culture demanding unquestionable belief, has been the accepted method by which human societies transmit their culture through the generations. (Religion can't be understood as a *theory* either, since the very concept of theory entails fallibility, a notion inconsistent with infallible dogma.)
>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.
But the abolition of religion requires more than that. It requires an alternative vehicle for transmitting culture. Else there can be no society in any real sense.
>Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on
>the chain not in order that man shall continue
>to bear that chain without fantasy or
>consolation, but so that he shall throw off the
>chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism
>of religion disillusions man, so that he will
>think, act, and fashion his reality like a man
>who has discarded his illusions and regained his
>senses, so that he will move around himself as
>his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory
>Sun which revolves around man as long as he does
>not revolve around himself.
There's a lot of truth in this, though of course it needs to be kept in mind that the necessary material conditions must be present. Not only the conditions necessary for ending want, so that religious consolation is no longer necessary, but more importantly the material conditions which make it possible to transmit culture in a non-dogmatic way. The former condition merely requires that the material necessities of life are available for all. The latter requires, at the very least, that all members of society have sufficient free time and information resources to permit them to study issues without having to accept anything without question.
It can be seen that, the material conditions necessary to transmit culture as fallible theories being absent, religion is absolutely crucial to the very existence of human society, in the sense of a culture that is capable of being transmitted to future generations. Only a tiny percentage of the population of most societies, the privileged elite, enjoyed the luxury of either freedom from want, or great leisure, necessary. Religion was a material necessity, else societies would cease to exist.
There are perhaps some implications of this for our present society, in which religion is undermined by capitalism, but without the majority of the population as a whole having access to those things necessary for the alternative. That's somewhat speculative though.
>It is, therefore, the task of history, once the
>other-world of truth has vanished, to establish
>the truth of this world. It is the immediate
>task of philosophy, which is in the service of
>history, to unmask self-estrangement in its
>unholy forms once the holy form of human
>self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the
>criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of
>Earth, the criticism of religion into the
>criticism of law, and the criticism of theology
>into the criticism of politics.
The above doesn't convey any clear meaning to me.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas