I just say for others, in case my point hasn't been clear enough, that Marx isn't an Enlightenment-style militant atheist in the sense that he thinks it worthwhile to engage in rationalistic debunkings of religion, or even a Nietzsche-style atheist who seeks to undermine the appeal to religion for his audience (different than Nietzsche's, of course, but genealogical critique. However, he is both personally and politically atheistic. While he views religion (European Christianity) as explicable as a response to alienating conditions, he thinks its effects are conservative and opposed to the aims of changing those conditions. That is why the critique of religion was central to the Young Hegelian project.
Marx gave up on that project after a few years in part because as he saw it an explanatory critique of religion was not going to do much to promote those aims. But Marx was never willing to make nice with religion, even if he was willing to tolerate it in the Internationale for similar reasons that he was willing to tolerate what he saw as childish talk about justice and fairness that he personally thought was empty and even harmful in the long wrong.Enough said. I'll leave jr to his opium.
--- jrdavis <from_alamut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> That the culture in which Marx lived and worked view
> opium as a medicine and not as something negative.
> marx even seems to be saying that religion was
> necessary (ath the least understandable) until the
> contitions which cause such pain are overcome then
> it will pass away (like the State). He was not a
> militant atheist and even argued against the Paris
> Communard Exiles who sought to impose atheism onto
> the Ist Internationale.
>
> 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
>
=== message truncated ===>
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