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Karl Marx got it wrong. His famous dictum is typically rendered as "religion is the opiate of the people". The quote is taken from a lengthy paragraph which appeared in (and this is a real mouthful of a title) in a work titled "Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of right" in which Marx is positively lyrical in his anti-religion diatribe.
So why do I think he got it wrong? The (very) short answer is modern society. Let me explain. The whole emphasis of modern society is on the masses doing a limited number of things. We are supposed to work, eat, shop and sleep. There are a few other activities that can also be engaged in but these are the major ones. Oh yes. One other activity. Engage in sex. Lots of it. And not for reproductive purposes either. Think about it. What was the one thing that Americans were encouraged to do after 9/11? Pray? Focus on family? Reflect on their life? reflect on mortality? How about asking why these terrible events took place? Infact it was none of these. The one thing above all else that Americans were encouraged to do was to (drum-roll please) ..... shop!
This my friends is the true opiate of the people. Our true worth is considered in terms of our shopping abilities. Feeling down? Shop for new clothes or shoes or something else. Don't feel like shopping for material goods? No problem. Go to your nearest cineplex. Enjoy a good movie. Oh and don't forget to buy the popcorn and drinks to enjoy while watching the movie and on your way out buy a few movie mementos as a reminder of the good time you have just had. What are the temples of modern life? What are the social spaces where we can go and meet people. What are the events that serve to bind us as a community? The answer to these questions is linked ultimately to shopping. Instead of a traditional market which typically had small shops and was pedestrian friendly, we are expected to go to huge malls which are designed to take us from one outlet to another and discourage us from lingering in the interim. Dubai is a prime example of this. The city is filled with shopping malls - each bigger and more elaborate than the previous one. Each mall is filled with designer shops and each shop is filled with an enticing array of goods. Each mall also has a very similar architecture despite superficial differences in appearance. The shops are all connected by corridors which do not have much seating space. More significantly, there are no areas where people can pause and reflect. In other words, we are being subconsciously encouraged to go into the next outlet as fast as we can. The one space in each mall which does have seating space is the food court. So if we don't shop, then we can eat Mcdonalds or Burger King or Pizza Hut or whatever.
When we are not shopping or going to a movie, we can watch TV in the comfort of our homes where we have access to hundreds of channels. And what choice! American Idol! Desperate housewives! Big Brother! Wimbledon! Golf! The choice is endless and nearly all of it is designed to stop us from thinking. Just think about it. Does watching the latest football (or cricket or rugby or soccer or indeed any sport) match, make you any better off? Are you any better off because you saw the latest episode of your favorite TV show? What will happen if you don't see these? Will your life take a turn for the worse? Will a disaster befall you? Will your wife (or husband or significant other) leave you? All that will have happened is that you will have spent a certain portion of your life in an activity that is essentially meaningless. And remember that this is time gone forever. You are never going to get it back. So are these things not true opiate for the people? We tend to think of ourselves as being so much better than people of old. We are much more sophisticated. Far less susceptible to external manipulations. But are we really? Are we not being manipulated all the time? We are being constantly manipulated to do things that the Government deems to be in our best interest and a major component of that is shopping. Even watching TV is geared towards ultimately getting us into the shops. The average time of a typical TV show has gone down by almost 10 minutes since the 60s. An episode of the original Star Trek is about 50 minutes (the rest of the time is taken by advertisements) whereas an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is only about 42 minutes. What has replaced the lost minutes? Ads of course. Ads designed to get us into a shopping mode. This has happened gradually. The result is manipulation without us being aware of it. We constantly bemoan the rat race and yet we feel obliged to participate in it. Why? why don't we exit? Because we feel that we cannot? But why do we feel that way?
So this is what modern society does to us. we are worth what we buy. Everything is geared towards getting us into the shops and buy. Another objective is also served by this. People who are mentally geared towards acquiring the latest trappings, the latest greatest thing and who are constantly striving to acquire the material things that they have been convinced constitute "the good life" are people who are not thinking too deeply about what is going on in the world and what is affecting them personally. We have been drugged into a mental slumber through a combination of shopping and entertainment (which includes all forms of sports activities). And always these things are being put just out of our reach so that we have to run harder and harder to remain in essentially the same place.
So why do I think he got it wrong? The (very) short answer is modern society. Let me explain. The whole emphasis of modern society is on the masses doing a limited number of things. We are supposed to work, eat, shop and sleep. There are a few other activities that can also be engaged in but these are the major ones. Oh yes. One other activity. Engage in sex. Lots of it. And not for reproductive purposes either. Think about it. What was the one thing that Americans were encouraged to do after 9/11? Pray? Focus on family? Reflect on their life? reflect on mortality? How about asking why these terrible events took place? Infact it was none of these. The one thing above all else that Americans were encouraged to do was to (drum-roll please) ..... shop!
This my friends is the true opiate of the people. Our true worth is considered in terms of our shopping abilities. Feeling down? Shop for new clothes or shoes or something else. Don't feel like shopping for material goods? No problem. Go to your nearest cineplex. Enjoy a good movie. Oh and don't forget to buy the popcorn and drinks to enjoy while watching the movie and on your way out buy a few movie mementos as a reminder of the good time you have just had. What are the temples of modern life? What are the social spaces where we can go and meet people. What are the events that serve to bind us as a community? The answer to these questions is linked ultimately to shopping. Instead of a traditional market which typically had small shops and was pedestrian friendly, we are expected to go to huge malls which are designed to take us from one outlet to another and discourage us from lingering in the interim. Dubai is a prime example of this. The city is filled with shopping malls - each bigger and more elaborate than the previous one. Each mall is filled with designer shops and each shop is filled with an enticing array of goods. Each mall also has a very similar architecture despite superficial differences in appearance. The shops are all connected by corridors which do not have much seating space. More significantly, there are no areas where people can pause and reflect. In other words, we are being subconsciously encouraged to go into the next outlet as fast as we can. The one space in each mall which does have seating space is the food court. So if we don't shop, then we can eat Mcdonalds or Burger King or Pizza Hut or whatever.
When we are not shopping or going to a movie, we can watch TV in the comfort of our homes where we have access to hundreds of channels. And what choice! American Idol! Desperate housewives! Big Brother! Wimbledon! Golf! The choice is endless and nearly all of it is designed to stop us from thinking. Just think about it. Does watching the latest football (or cricket or rugby or soccer or indeed any sport) match, make you any better off? Are you any better off because you saw the latest episode of your favorite TV show? What will happen if you don't see these? Will your life take a turn for the worse? Will a disaster befall you? Will your wife (or husband or significant other) leave you? All that will have happened is that you will have spent a certain portion of your life in an activity that is essentially meaningless. And remember that this is time gone forever. You are never going to get it back. So are these things not true opiate for the people? We tend to think of ourselves as being so much better than people of old. We are much more sophisticated. Far less susceptible to external manipulations. But are we really? Are we not being manipulated all the time? We are being constantly manipulated to do things that the Government deems to be in our best interest and a major component of that is shopping. Even watching TV is geared towards ultimately getting us into the shops. The average time of a typical TV show has gone down by almost 10 minutes since the 60s. An episode of the original Star Trek is about 50 minutes (the rest of the time is taken by advertisements) whereas an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is only about 42 minutes. What has replaced the lost minutes? Ads of course. Ads designed to get us into a shopping mode. This has happened gradually. The result is manipulation without us being aware of it. We constantly bemoan the rat race and yet we feel obliged to participate in it. Why? why don't we exit? Because we feel that we cannot? But why do we feel that way?
So this is what modern society does to us. we are worth what we buy. Everything is geared towards getting us into the shops and buy. Another objective is also served by this. People who are mentally geared towards acquiring the latest trappings, the latest greatest thing and who are constantly striving to acquire the material things that they have been convinced constitute "the good life" are people who are not thinking too deeply about what is going on in the world and what is affecting them personally. We have been drugged into a mental slumber through a combination of shopping and entertainment (which includes all forms of sports activities). And always these things are being put just out of our reach so that we have to run harder and harder to remain in essentially the same place.
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