Kurt Vonnegut on Marx

[Kuppo Shakur]

Here is a segment from Kurt Vonnegut at Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 27, 2007:

...But there are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people, and he wanted to get rid of it.
But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word "opium" wasn't simply metaphorical. Back then real opium was the only painkiller available, for toothaches or cancer of the throat, or whatever. He himself had used it.
As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK?
He might have said today as I say tonight, "Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm glad it works."I'm not sure what to make of this. It makes perfect sense to me, but obviously some research is in order.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Marx took opiates in his own life for chronic conditions he had. I think if you look at the metaphor like that, it's meaning is clear: religion is useful to people because it eases their pain in a "soulless world". But just as a painkiller can only ease pain, but not cure the root cause of the pain, religion can not ultimately cure our ills.

[RED DAVE]

Marx's many health problems.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s57321.htm

The opium he took might have contributed to his chronic constipation.

On another note, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the kindest, most humane people of his generation.

RED DAVE

[Buffalo Souljah]

On another note, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the kindest, most humane people of his generation.He was the first person I've heard compare a president to a desert.

[Jimmie Higgins]

He was the first person I've heard compare a president to a desert.:lol:Ha, can you explain?

Here's a link to the entire speech, which is a nice reminder of the socialist tradition in the US that existed not only in urban east coast immigrant communities but the industrial "heartland" as well.

http://www.vonnegutweb.com/archives/arc_carlsandburgaward.html

[mikelepore]

Vonnegut said:

"As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight, 'Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm glad it works.'"

I think that's an inaccurate interpretation. Marx explained in that writing that the happiness produced by religion is not real by illusory. Marx did not say that he was in favor of having illusions. What Marx actually said was that the illusions won't go away until the conditions that require illusions have been ended. That is not equivalent to what Vonnegut said.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Vonnegut said:

"As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that, and certainly didn't want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight, 'Religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I'm glad it works.'"

I think that's an inaccurate interpretation. Marx explained in that writing that the happiness produced by religion is not real by illusory. Marx did not say that he was in favor of having illusions. What Marx actually said was that the illusions won't go away until the conditions that require illusions have been ended. That is not equivalent to what Vonnegut said.This is very true and I was trying to argue a similar point in my first post, but the context of Vonnegut's speech was more about contrasting Christianity and socialism and the claim that socialism wants to forcibly force people to be atheists than explaining Marx's views on religion.

Besides, Vonnegut is not a revolutionary socialist, but a humanist with a sincere attraction to the values that socialism generally represents. Although he could be really pessimistic in his writings, he always seemed to be for real human understanding and IMO argued in many of his books that the crazy nature of our society (not human nature or original sin) is the root cause for the crazy things that humans sometimes do to each-other - the implication being that if we lived in a better and more reasonable society, then we could afford to be better and more reasonable people.

[Kuppo Shakur]

Yeah, I guess it's just the 'Vonnegut interpretation' of Marx's words, as it fits everything else Vonnegut says about religion. While he has a point, he probably wasn't being serious.
Overall, I guess religion has its place, but at the same time it has the potential to stifle the progress of Communism and such.
Also, found this on MarxMyths.org: http://marxmyths.org/cyril-smith/index.php#marxandgod

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah, I guess it's just the 'Vonnegut interpretation' of Marx's words, as it fits everything else Vonnegut says about religion. While he has a point, he probably wasn't being serious.
Overall, I guess religion has its place, but at the same time it has the potential to stifle the progress of Communism and such.
Also, found this on MarxMyths.org: http://marxmyths.org/cyril-smith/index.php#marxandgod

That's definatly an open debate among the radical left. Personally, I think "opiate" or even "pain-killer" is the best analogy. At best it can mask the problem and make people feel better - at worst it can be abused and compound the root problem (capitalism).

I think it's important not to just see religion as a sort of tool of the ruling class to push ideologies favorable to them on us (although this definitely happens and can easily be observed). But for the people who actually do get some benefit from their faith (like a sense of community, support, therapy, and a sense of justice in the world), if we argue that they are just "dupes" we will only alienate them. So I think we need to explain that religion is not "evil" or simply a brain-washing trick, but the problem with religion is that it can not make things better in society or fix any problems for us in the real world - for that we need working class struggle, organization and solidarity and ultimately revolution and a different kind of society.