Opiate for the Masses was a post-hardcore band from Arizona. They formed in Phoenix in 1999 by Ron Underwood, Elias Mallin, Dustin Lyon and Jim Kaufman. The meaning of their name comes from the Karl Marx quote that says the organized religion is an opiate for oppressed countries and cultures. In June 2009, they posted on their MySpace page that they had broken up and gone their separate ways. Ron is currently singing for 9 Electric.
Read more about Opiate For The Masses: Background, Break-up Announcement, Reunion
Famous quotes containing the words opiate for the, opiate for, opiate and/or masses:
“This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervishlike repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstacy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervishlike repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstacy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an airhole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“The masses always end up wholeheartedly believing and following those individuals whom they themselves mock, individuals whom they curse and persecute, but individuals who, not fearing their curses or their persecution, continue steadily forward, having fastened a spiritual gaze on the only goal such individuals can see.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)