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Antonio Gramsci
Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks
Religion, the Lottery and the Opium of Poverty [1]
In his Conversazioni Critiche [Critical Conversations], Vol. 2, pp. 300-301, Croce identifies the `source' of Matilde Serao's The Land of Cockaygne, 65 as a thought of Balzac's. In his 1841 novel La Rabouilleuse, subsequently entitled Un ménage de garçon, in writing of Madame Descoings, who had bet on the same trio of numbers for 21 years, the novelist-philosopher and sociologist comments: `This mania, so generally condemned, has never been properly studied. No one has realised that it is the opium of the poor. Did not the lottery, the mightiest fairy in the world, work up magical hopes? The roll of the roulette wheel that made the gamblers glimpse masses of gold and delights did not last longer than a lightning flash; whereas the lottery spread the magnificent blaze of lightning over five whole days. Where is the social force today that, for forty sous, can make you happy for five days and bestow on you -- at least in fancy -- all the delights that civilisation holds?' 66
Croce had already noted in his essay on Serao (Letteratura della nuova Italia [Literature of the New Italy], Vol. 3, p. 51) that the idea which gave birth to the Land of Cockaygne (1890) was to be found in a passage from Serao's other book Il ventre di Napoli [The Belly of Naples] (1884), in which `the lottery is explained as "the great dream of happiness" that the Neapolitans "dream every week anew", living "for six days in a growing hope that invades every corner and transcends the boundaries of real life", the dream "in which there is everything that they are deprived of, a clean house with healthy fresh air, fine warm sunlight shining on the floor, a high white bed, a gleaming chest of drawers, meat
and pasta every day, and that litre of wine, and that cradle for the baby together with the wife's linen and the husband's new hat".'
The passage from Balzac might also be linked with the expression `opium of the people' used in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, published in 1844 (check the date), whose author was a great admirer of Balzac. `His admiration for Balzac was so profound that he had planned to write a critique of the Comédie Humaine,' writes Lafargue in his memoirs of Karl Marx, published in the note included by Ryazanov (p.114 of the French edition). 67 Latterly (perhaps in 1931) an unpublished letter of Engels has been printed in which he speaks at length of Balzac and the cultural importance to be attached to him. 68
It is likely that the transition from the expression `opium of the poor', used by Balzac for the lottery, to the `opium of the people', for religion, was aided by Pascal's reflection on the `wager', which brings religion into proximity with games of chance, with betting. It may be recalled that it was just in 1843 that Victor Cousin drew attention to the authentic manuscript of Pascal's Thoughts, which had first been printed, with numerous errors, by his friends of Port Royal in 1670 and were then reprinted in 1844 by the publisher Faugère from the manuscript provided by Cousin. The Thoughts, in which Pascal develops his argument on the `wager' are the fragments of an Apology for the Christian Life which he never finished. His line of thought (according to G. Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française [History of French Literature], 19th edn., p.464) is: `Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it, then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally we must prove it is true.' 69
After the argument against the indifference of the atheists, which serves as a general introduction to the work, Pascal expounds his thesis on the impotence of reason, which is incapable of knowing everything or knowing anything with certainty and which is reduced to judging by the appearances offered by an object in its surroundings.
Faith is a superior means of knowing; it is exercised beyond the limits that reason can reach. But even if this were true, and even if there were no means of reaching God, by reason or by any other way, in the absolute impossibility of knowing, one would however have to act as if one did know since, according to probability, there is an advantage in betting that religion is true and in regulating one's life accordingly. By living a Christian life, one is risking an infinitesimal amount, a few years of motley pleasures (plaisir mêlé) in order to gain infinity, eternal joy. One can reflect on the fact that Pascal was very shrewd in giving a literary form, logical justification and moral prestige to this gambling argument, which is a common way of considering religion, but a `shame-faced' mode of thought because at the same time as giving satisfaction, it seems base and unworthy. Pascal confronted this `shame' (if it may be termed thus, since it could be that the `wager' argument that is now popular -- in popular forms -- is derived from Pascal's book and was previously unknown) 70 and sought to cloak a popular way of thinking with some dignity and justification. (How many times has one heard `What do we lose by going to church and believing in God? If there isn't a God, what does it matter; but if there is, won't it have been useful to have believed?' and so on.) This mode of thought, even in Pascal's `wager', smacks somewhat of Voltairianism and recalls the way that Heine expressed himself: `Who knows whether the Eternal Father has not prepared some beautiful surprise for us after our death?' 71 or something of that nature. (See how the students of Pascal explain and provide moral justification for the `wager' argument. There must be some study of it in P. P. Trompeo's Rilegature Gianseniste [A Jansenist Collection] where he speaks of the `wager' in relation to Manzoni; see also Ruffini's study of Manzoni as a believer.)
From an article by Antonio Marescalchi `Keep on! Even in Silk-worm Cultivation' from the Corriere della Sera of 24 April 1932: `Every half ounce of silk-worm eggs used for cultivation entitles one to compete for prizes that, beginning modestly (400 prizes of 1,000 lire each), include a number from 10 to 20,000 each and go up to five ranging from 50 to
250,000 lire. The Italian people is always ready to take a chance; in the countryside even now, not a single person turns down the "lucky dip" or the tombola. Here, a ticket allowing one to try one's luck is offered gratis.'
There is moreover a close connection between the lottery and religion, wins showing who is among the `elect' or recipients of a particular grace of a Saint or the Madonna. One could make a comparison between the Protestants' activist conception of grace that provided the spirit of capitalist enterprise with its moral form and the passive and `good-for-nothing' (lazzaronesca) conception of grace typical of the Catholic common people. Look at the role Ireland has had in bringing sweepstakes back into the Anglo-Saxon countries and the protests of papers like the Manchester Guardian that represent the spirit of the Reformation.
One should furthermore see whether in the title of his book Les Paradis Artificiels (and in his treatment too) Baudelaire drew his inspiration from the expression `opium of the people'; the formula might have come to him indirectly from political or journalistic literature. It is not in my opinion likely (though it cannot be excluded) that before the book by Balzac there already existed some manner of speaking whereby opium and the other drugs and narcotics were presented as a means for the enjoyment of an artificial paradise. (One must also further bear in mind that up to 1848 Baudelaire was involved in practical activity of some sort, edited political weeklies and took an active part in the Parisian events of 1848.)
Q16§1.
41 Religion, the Lottery and the Opium of Poverty [2]
A French philosopher, Jules Lachelier (on whom see G. De Ruggiero's preface to Lachelier's Psicologia e Metafisica [Psychology and Metaphysics], Bari 1915) wrote a note (considered `acute' by De Ruggiero) on Pascal's `wager' in the volume Du fondement de l'induction [On the Foundations of Induction] (Paris in the Bibliothèque de
philosophie contemporaine series). The main objection to Pascal's formulation of the religious problem of the `wager' is that of `intellectual honesty' towards oneself. It would appear that the whole conception of the `wager', as far as I recall, is closer to Jesuit than to Jansenist ethics, too much the `merchant's outlook' etc. (cf. other paragraphs on this argument in the preceding notebook). 72