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    Why Marxism is The Opium of the Intellectuals

    A review of Raymond Aron's The Opium of the Intellectuals.

    Why Marxism is The Opium of the Intellectuals

    ...In his ninth chapter, “Intellectuals in Search of a Religion,” Aron begins by exploring the way in which Soviet Communism embraced Marxism as a surrogate civil religion and the Communist Party as a surrogate church:

    [Marxism] provides true Communists with a global interpretation of the universe; it instills sentiments akin to those of the crusaders of all ages; it fixes the hierarchy of values and establishes the norms of good conduct. It fulfills, in the individual and in the collective soul, some of the functions which the sociologist normally ascribes to religions. (265)

    With Marxism as its surrogate religion, the Communist Party offered itself as the “church” in which the people could be discipled while ushering in the final cure for mankind’s misery (266). It promised salvation through violence and revolution (267) and demanded total submission to the Party (268).

    Unlike other political ideologies, Aron argues, Communism’s promises were so absurd and its demands so comprehensive that it functioned like a fanatical sect:

    One could call it fanaticism, if that is the right word to designate decrees by which a single party is transfigured into the guide of the world proletariat, a single system of interpretation superimposed on the unintelligible complexity of the facts, a single road to socialism proclaimed obligatory for all. Fanatical, surely, is the Communist who divides mankind into two camps according to their attitude towards the sacred cause…. (270)

    Indeed, the sacred cause is all that really mattered. Any amount of violence could be justified, any amount of lies overlooked so long as they are a means of achieving the socialist future (285).

    Next, Aron notes the way many Western intellectuals have a soft spot in their heart for Marxism despite its track record of totalitarian rule, mass violence, suppression of liberty, and induction of poverty. Marx called religion the “opium of the people,” meaning that religion provided the uneducated masses with pleasant illusions that helped them carry on in the midst of their wretched lives) but Aron calls Marxism itself the “opium of the intellectuals,” meaning that Marxism itself is the illusion and that it is nonetheless embraced by Western intellectuals (291)....
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    A review of Raymond Aron's The Opium of the Intellectuals.

    Why Marxism is The Opium of the Intellectuals
    Yep. Everything for the state with one exception, the State itself
    For waltky: http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/
    "The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
    - Thucydides

    "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" B. Franklin
    Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

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