[FRA:] Max Horkheimer on Religion

[Ralph Dumain]

Dept. of religion?  Perhaps this explains the insipidity and shoddy 
reasoning of your response.  Naturally theologians will exploit 
critical theory as they will exploit all other tools they can find to 
undermine reason.  After all, if the common enemy is 
"positivism"--conveniently conflated with "science"--the process of 
probing the enemy's weak points on the part of 
religionists--Catholics have set up all their universities to do 
this--means the enlistment of all "continental philosophy" has to 
offer to support the cause of reaction.  Critical theory's own 
weaknesses are also the obscurantists' strengths--flawed works like 
Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer's senescent writings, Bloch's 
mystical crapola--their record is not unblemished.

You can call a "religious impulse" anything you like.  My last bowel 
movement could be described as a religious experience; that, however, 
does not make me a theist.  A "religious impulse" among critical 
theorists does not make critical theory consonant with religion in 
any way, shape, or form.

Furthermore, critical theory has long ceased being critical; it like 
everything else has been processed like so much sausage by a 
generation of second-rate academic hacks who have nothing fresh to 
say about anything.

At 08:21 AM 1/31/2008, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: theory-frankfurt-school-bounces at srcf.ucam.org
>[mailto:theory-frankfurt-school-bounces at srcf.ucam.org] On Behalf Of Ralph
>Dumain
>Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:22 AM
>To: theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org
>Subject: [FRA:] Max Horkheimer on Religion
>
>In re:
>Brittain, Christopher Craig. "Social Theory and the Premise of All
>Criticism: Max Horkheimer on Religion," Critical Sociology, vol. 31,
>no. 1-2, pp. 153-168, 2005.
>
>
>As for Brittain's agenda:
>
>"Although many of these reflections remain fragmentary and
>undeveloped, Horkheimer's reflections on religion suggest avenues for
>an ongoing and fruitful dialogue between historical materialism and
>religion."
>
>Horseshit!
>
>Ralph,
>
>I think you're underestimating the "religious impulse" the underlines the
>bulk of Frankfurt School theorizing. Hegel was a CHRISTIAN theologian. Marx
>didn't really do much de-Christianizing of his dialectic. Most of the entire
>project of critical theory has religious underpinnings, as Brittain
>suggests. These roots and tendencies and inspirations are _ambiguous_ in the
>Freudian Totem and Taboo sense of the term. This genuinely means an affinity
>between critical theory and religion. All of the critical theorists - all of
>them - saw a future either for religion OR the history of religions in
>modernity. See Hans Kippenberg's Discovering Religious History in the Modern
>Age for a possible explanation why.
>
>Theologians and religious adherents will inevitably be drawn to critical
>theory as modernity erodes its object domain (technology replaces the
>supernatural, so the theologian must retreat to the places that technology
>has not yet occupied, freedom, justice, spirit). Of course there is an
>ongoing and fruitful dialogue between historical materialism and religion...
>maybe more fruitful for religion than historical materialism though. But -
>you MUST recognize - religious language remains inspiring for many. Not
>supernatural contact or miracles - but the rejuvenating power of religious
>metaphor. I've noticed your use of the term horseshit, the same shit from
>which the devil sprang? And masturbation, one of the deadly sins? The
>language of condemnation - the graphic imagery - is religious in its legacy
>and efficacy. You use it on the list all the time. Why? Because it sets
>people on edge. It gives you a means of expression that is poignant (and
>something to sound off about).
>
>The Protestant Reformers and the Student Revolts had far more in common that
>many would like to admit. Both opposed ritual, institution, and dogma. Both
>spiritualized their discourses with the Holy Ghost (Luther), LDS (Kesey), or
>the Spirit of Utopia (Bloch). All turned toward the interior self as a means
>of resisting external reality. I learned this from Mary Douglas, Natural
>Symbols, someone else who thought that religion had a future.
>
>Don't get me wrong, I'm a secularist through and through, but the secularist
>position is also ambivalence. It does depend on a shoring up of religious
>sentiment in the private sphere, and I know what that means: JERRY FALWELL.
>
>Lupus in fabula,
>Ken
>
>Dept of Religion
>University of Manitoba