The New Opiate of the Masses

Karl Marx is well known for his foolish statement that Religion is the opiate of the masses used to make us not notice the suffering our oppressors are putting us through. Sure society uses opiates to quiet the masses. It uses bread and circuses to keep the mobs content as ancient Rome did. It buys people off with welfare checks.

There was once a Calvin and Hobbs strip where Calvin was reading a book and read Religion is the opiate of the masses and wondered what he meant. The Television answered and said It means Marx had no idea. The television also functions as an opiate of the masses.

Today we have a new opiate of the masses.

As freedom of the press, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, economic freedom, the right to defend yourself, the right to your own property etc seem to be boxed in more and more through the actions of the PC thought police one realm of freedom is growing and it is the true opiate of the masses.

In Huxley's Brave New World the state used the drug Soma and sexual promiscuity to control the crowds. (Both were social opiates though Soma was literally one.) By keeping one's mind on sexual activity and tuned to sex the people were prevented from thinking about anything else.

Another, lesser known but still interesting, Dystopian novel is Robert Silverberg's The World Inside . (I must say though that I speak of this book with some reservations as it is mildly pornographic -- though far from graphic by today's standards.) It takes place in large structures called Urbmons which are thousand story tall buildings in which a Utopian society exists. It is a society of sex, drugs and reproduction where it is a criminal offense to reject a sexual request. Sadly many correctly see the warning of overpopulation in the book but fail to see the other warning. In the end the only freedom the people have is sexual freedom as everything else is controlled. Yet even sexual freedom doesn't exist because you don't have the right to say no.

As the book progresses you begin to see how empty the lives of these people are. Sex is easy to get and meaningless and even love is hard to see. Then you begin to understand that those who control society use sexual pleasure to control the masses.

Today we are barraged with sexual stimuli that is used for advertising and art. Even, otherwise innocuous, childrens' movies and cartoons contain sexual content. Kids are beginning to believe that the sex drive must be fulfilled. Who benefits from this promiscuity? It sure isn't those who practice endless sex.

Is sexual freedom the bait that will be used to draw people into giving up their other freedoms? While many support "sexual liberation" without a political agenda, I am not so sure that the educators, psychologists etc who support this are (ahem) "pure" in their motives.

Give up all of your other freedoms and I will give you endless varieties of sexual pleasure.