<div>Opium was considered a pain reliever and a beneficial medicine in the West during Marx's early life.</div> <div> </div> <div>jim Chris Doss <lookoverhere1@yahoo.com> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> 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 <HEARTFIELD@BLUEYONDER.CO.UK> 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! кчан, апюржш, кчан, кчан, апюржш, фхрэ! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </BLOCKQUOTE>