Meaning of Religion is the opium of the people

What does Religion is the opium of the people mean:

The phrase "religion is the opium of the people" is the authorship of Karl Marx, a prominent 19th century German intellectual and philosopher. It means that religion is used by the ruling classes as an instrument to control the people, alleviating and giving meaning to his sufferings through the idea of ​​a world of illusory happiness and the promise of a life eternal.

The phrase is part of the system of thought of Marx, also known as Marxism, which held that people oppressed by the capitalist system had to make a revolution to end capitalism and establish a communist regime of equality and justice Social.

Phrase analysis

"Religion is the opium of the people" is the translation of the original German phrase "Die Religion […] si ist das Opium des Volkes”. It is found in the writing "Contribution to the critique of Hegel's philosophy of law", published in 1844, in the newspaper Deutsch-Französischen Jahrbücher her (Franco-German yearbooks).

The phrase is found in a part of the writing where

Marx exposes his ideas about religion and its meaning for the people. For his analysis, it is very important to appreciate it in context:

Religious misery is, at the same time, the expression of real misery and the protest against real misery. Religion is the sigh of the tormented creature, the soul of a soulless world, and it is also the spirit of spiritless situations. Religion is people's opium.

To renounce religion as illusory happiness of the people is to demand true happiness for them. To demand the renunciation of illusions corresponding to your present state is to demand the renunciation of a situation that needs illusions. Therefore, the critique of religion is, in germ, the critique of this valley of tears, surrounded by a halo of religiosity.

For Marx, religion implies not only the real misery of human life, but a form of protest against it, as if the Religion, in a certain sense, was based precisely on the misery of the world and the reality that torments the soul human.

Therefore, in the next paragraph, Marx calls for renouncing religion, his illusory bliss, his promise of a better world after this miserable life, because he considers that religion is a symptom of the need for illusions of the people, condemned to a valley of tears.

In this sense, Marx implicitly recognizes the need of societies for a spiritual life that gives meaning to life, that guides their steps, that makes them believe that the Suffering in this world is irremediable and fleeting, and that they must endure it because their lives of work and lack will be rewarded in the promise of eternal life in the world. Paradise.

For Marx, then, the renunciation of religion in pursuit of the struggle to achieve true happiness in real life, without delay, would be the ideal; a life not subject to the needs and hardships that the people are forced to endure in order to support the oppressors, that is, the ruling classes, the owners of the means of production and the clergy; a better life in a better world here on earth, during this existence.

Religion denies that possibility, because religion summons an imaginary world, full of illusions and promises of a better life, without hardships or sufferings, which works as a balm to withstand the pain and misery of a social system that oppresses most of the population, privileging a few.

Thus, then, this miserable life is only bearable thanks to that promise that alienates the human being, that lulls him to sleep and makes him accept the current social order as necessary and irremediable, impossible to change, because this has been the will of God, forcing him to postpone the dreams of justice and equality to the divine world. In other words: religion becomes the discourse through which social injustices are legitimized.

Hence the metaphorical comparison of religion with opium, which is a narcotic substance, obtained from poppy seeds, which has an effect analgesic and tranquilizer in people, and that formerly was used as medicine against pain.

Thus, in the same way that opium works as an anesthetic against pain, it limits thought, clouds vision, and prevents reality from being faced, Likewise, religion does not allow us to see beyond the illusory world that they have painted, with its threats of eternal punishment in case of rebellion and its promise of peace. eternal.

Religion is the remedy to calm spiritual anguish and prevent the people from fighting to modify the order established by the ruling classes, which is the cause of their suffering.

For Marx, therefore, the only answer to that social system that forced the people to suffer and want was a revolution that change the conditions of the world and fulfill the promises of a better world not in the afterlife, after life, but in his own land.

About Karl Marx

Karl Marx was a German philosopher of Jewish origin born in the Kingdom of Prussia in 1818. His work spanned the fields of philosophy, politics, history, economics, and sociology.

He is considered one of the most influential intellectuals of the last centuries. Together with Friedrich Engels he founded scientific socialism, historical materialism, and historical communism.

His theories of society, economics, and politics are known as Marxism, and they exerted an enormous influence on later philosophical thought.

Among the best known writings of him are Capital and the Communist Party Manifesto. He died in the UK in 1883.