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this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Reading the whole quote, especially that whole paragraph, it appears that Marx is saying that opium is both medicine and drug. It is both a comfort and an escape. It's a way for dealing with the suffering of reality -- without actually engaging with reality. At least that's my read.
To extend this metaphor a little more, I think he's also implying that religion acts as a sort of social anaesthetic, dulling the suffering that the masses experience, while not treating the root cause of the ailment itself.
It being a “medicine” is a good point that I haven’t considered tbh. Like most drugs, there are legitimate applications that will absolutely help the patient’s life without hurting him. We just need to reach the conditions to achieve that
Yeah, like how opiates today still have very valid medical uses, but their application has become so widespread that they've left the realm of medical tools (for many people) and entered the realm of escapism.
When people aren't turning to religion because of their total fear of destruction and destitution by capitalism, and the churches themselves begin to take on a more community organized and driven structure, you'll see the "true" form of religion emerge and over time the need for that religion will fade as the needs that were sated by religion becomes sated by the community as a whole.
Or at least the religion begins to take on the form of the socialized society that it exists in as opposed to impressing it's own hierarchical structure on the society that seems it out.