Fake News (Lies) is....

[Mike Weaver]

Good one Ish,

These days I have a similar response to anyone who uses the phrase, to 
point to the whole quote, or at the least the 'heart of a heartless 
world' phrase.

But you explain it far better than I ever could.

Mike


On 18-Aug-17 4:03 PM, ish mailian wrote:
> "[fill in the blank] is the opiate of the people."
>
> It's worth re-reading Marx to see what he meant when he famously said,
> "It is the opium of the people."
>
> Quoted like this, or, as is most often the case, with the antecedent
> noun, Religion, in place of the pronoun, most readers assume that the
> statement is fairly straightforward and simple.
>
> Religion is the opium of the people.
>
> Substituting other words or phrases has given the weight of Marx's
> statement  to whatever a writer elects to compare with religion.
>
> A close look at the original text reveals that the pronoun "it" as
> used by Marx carries far more than its immediate antecedent or
> religion.
>
> In fact, as Marx says from the beginning of his essay, the critique of
> religion, while essential, a prerequisite to all criticism,  is
> complete.
>
> So is the famous sentence synoptic, a repetition for emphasis, or what?
>
>
> First, Marx restates the critique of religion with confidence and finality.
>
> The opium sentence that follows the summary of the critique is not
> synoptic and it does not merely add a flair of emphasis, an emphatic
> metaphor.
>
> The sentence is about suffering, the real suffering of the oppressed
> and the protest against suffering.
>
> Here is what Marx wrote:
>
> "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."
>
> When read with its preceding sentences the statement is not only more
> profound, it is more germane to us, to our suffering, how we express
> it and how we protest against it.
>
> When we read the famous statement with words substituted  for the word
> religion we do well to recall the original context and what it is Marx
> identifies. The opium or opiate epidemic plaguing the American white
> working classes is an expression of suffering, of despair, and a
> protest against the suffering, the losses of white privilege.
>
> Marx writes:
> "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."
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 10:39 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...the opiate of the people.
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>


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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l