Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses and I guess at the time he wrote that then he was right. For centuries, religion had been used to guide and direct the masses in the way their ecclesiastical masters wanted it to be. What Marx did not say that was that the masses were by and large content – well apart from the occasional scrap like civil war, demonstrations and the like. It was all a bit like me not knowing I was poor until someone told me. Oh sure I could see plenty of people who were better off but I also saw some who were worse off. I wasn’t quite the rebel then.
Well Marx’s ideas prevailed in many parts of this world and that led to the formation of the Soviet Union and spin-offs elsewhere. Notably Communism succeeded where people who had bugger all. And then as my father foretold when I was a child, once those people had their bellies full, they’d want more and one day, Communism would fail to meet those aspirations.
He was right and Communism fell.
So do we have an opiate today? Hell, yes, it’s called sport. I cannot think of anything else which arouses so much emotion not even the banker’s bail outs. The Romans understood this which is why they had the games. Our own politicians had an inkling when the backed our athletes in the Beijing Olympics and made that stupid bid for the Olympic Games in 2012.
However, they have not gone nearly far enough. They should have switched the odd £100 billion from the banks and sponsored sport 24/7. Imagine it, eternal soccer, covered cricket grounds, Wimbledon every day etc... It would satisfy a multitude and given the prevalence of alcohol at sporting events, it would keep the masses stupefied too.
But not me.
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