jim
andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
Your point?
--- jrdavis wrote:
> During the 1800's most people in the West were
> mildly addicted to some form of opium..laudiaum had
> the largest use. Working class folk routinely used
> opiates to drug their children to sleep while they
> worked...if you examined poplular magizines of the
> 1800's you would be surprised by the uses of opium.
>
> jim
>
> andie nachgeborenen
> wrote:
> Yes, and of course a German proto-Communist
> radical
> like Marx would naturally share the British
> bourgeois
> view of the matter on this as on everything, right?
>
> It's interesting that opium was viewed by the Brits
> as
> fairly benign, although I guess I have my doubts, or
> suspect they had theirs, considering that it was
> China
> and not England that they wanted to push their drugs
> in, yes I know that opium was not criminalized in
> England in the 1840s, but it was not highly promoted
> as in China after the Opium Wars. Be that as it may.
>
> You also have to read the passage in its rhetorical
> logic as well as the social history. -- All of the
> social history, knowing who Marx was and where his
> sympathies lay! Not only with the Chinese and
> against
> the British colonialists, but also against religion,
> since passage is part of Marx's contribution to the
> Young Hegelian attack on the status quo (including
> colonialism) and its religious support. It is
> therefore nor credible to take Marx as saying,
> "religion is good, like opium." He doesn't want
> people
> to take solace in faith(even though he explains why
> they do), he wants them to transform society so they
> don't have to.
>
> Rhetorically the passage on religion gives us a
> series
> of explanatory characterizations of religion
> (European
> Christianity), the heart of a heartless world, the
> soul of soulless conditions, the cry of the
> oppressed
> soul -- that are clearly in part ironical insofar as
> they appear to be positive or endorsements of
> religion. We know these because they are offered in
> the context of a critique of religion.
>
> After the normatively neutral (as far as an
> assessment of religion goes) caesura, "the cry of
> the
> oppressed," Marx concludes with the "opium of the
> masses" clause. It is the sting in the tail of
> sentence, a negative characterization that reverses
> the ironical, superficially positive thrust of the
> first two clauses, and reveals them to be ironical.
> And it makes to sense to read it in any other way,
> even just taking the passage on its own, because
> there
> would be no rhetorical point in returning to a
> positive characterization after the caesura. That
> would just be wrong footed, and Marx very rarely is
> wrongfooted. The passage then does not read, + + 0
> +,
> as you seem to suggest but ( + + ) 0 -! --the
> parentheses indicate irony.
>
>
> --- jrdavis wrote:
>
> > You need to read up on how opium was viewed in the
> > West. That the Chinese rejected opium was seen in
> > Britian as a sign of their backwardness.
> >
> > jim
> >
> > andie nachgeborenen
> > wrote:
> >
> > As Marx certainly knew when he wrote the famous
> > passage on religion, opium was prohibited in
> China,
> > the trade being a capital crime, and it took a war
> > to
> > force opium down the throats of the Chinese.
> >
> >
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars#From_the_Napier_Affair_through_the_First_Opium_War_.281834.E2.80.931843.29
> >
> > --- jrdavis wrote:
> >
> > > Opium was considered a pain reliever and a
> > > beneficial medicine in the West during Marx's
> > early
> > > life.
> > >
> > > jim
> > >
> > > Chris Doss wrote:
> > >
> > > I always thought he had in mind not the Opium
> > Wars,
> > > but the use of opiates as anesthesia and as a
> > > high-society recreational drug (or did that not
> > > start
> > > until later?).
> > >
> > > --- James Heartfield
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > the 'opium of the people'. Marx was no
> 'sixties
> > > > druggy. He thought opium was
> > > > very bad indeed. The image he had in mind was
> > not
> > > Wm
> > > > Burroughs but the opium
> > > > that the British Empire had used to get the
> > > Chinese
> > > > addicted, so they would
> > > > be forced to give up their tea.
> > > >
> > > > In today's circumstances, which is something
> > like
> > > a
> > > > slip backwards from the
> > > > high point of Enlightenment rationality, I can
> > > > understand the point that the
> > > > critics of religion are sometimes worse than
> > > > religion itself. I mean that
> > > > the Nietzsche/Kojeve/Sartre humanism is a
> > > > disenchantment with humanity that
> > > > strips out exactly that which is best in
> > Hegelian
> > > > Geist, the active,
> > > > subjective side.
> > > >
> > > > But if anyone wants to make a Marxist defence
> of
> > > > religion they should bear
> > > > in mind that, like a good Hegelian, Marx would
> > > think
> > > > Protestantism superior
> > > > to catholicism, and catholicism superior to
> > > Judaism,
> > > > and all of them
> > > > superior to Islam, which is plainly a descent
> > into
> > > > mumbo-jumbo, and all
> > > > organised religions superior to new age
> beliefs,
> > > > with the worship of the
> > > > Earth mother Gaia at the bottom of any list he
> > > would
> > > > be likely to draw up.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ___________________________________
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Lyubo, bratsy, lyubo, lyubo, bratsy, zhit!
> > >
> > > ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ËÞÁÎ, ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ÆÈÒÜ!
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
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