APAD: Religion is the opium of the people

Background:

   This is probably the best-known quotation by Karl Marx, the German economist

   and Communist political philosopher. The origin German text, in Critique of

   Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843 is:

 

     Die Religion... ist das Opium des Volkes

 

   This has been translated variously as `religion is the opiate of the masses',

   `religion is the opium of the masses' and, in a version which German scholars

   prefer `religion is the opium of the people'. The context the phrase appears

   is this:

 

     "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless

     world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium

     of the people."

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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The phrase reminded me of middle-school political economy when traditional

Chinese religions, if they had ever achieved the status of spiritual opium among

the masses, had hitherto been wiped out during the revolutions. Our generation

were "born under the red flag and raised in honey jars," as the saying went. The

new China had saved us from cults, drugs, and a multitude of other harms. I was

grateful, as I should be, but obvious not enough. I remembered barely passing

the course by tenacious rote-learning, and it was with dubious luck that I did or

I might not get out of the country to see for myself.