[FRA:] Max Horkheimer on Religion

[Kenneth MacKendrick]

-----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 9:55 AM
To: theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org
Subject: Re: [FRA:] Max Horkheimer on Religion

I would think, though, that the process of liberalization and 
secularization has similarities across cultures.  Protestantism was 
the first historical example on a mass scale.  But note that the main 
intellectual protagonist of the Radical Enlightenment was Spinoza, a 
Jew.  Why not call secularization a Jewish phenomenon? 

**Secularization is a sociological concept that can't really be used to
explain particular examples, it refers to generalities. Kind of like
statistics. Your chances of dying of cancer are not 33%. Your chances of
dying of cancer are 0% or 100%.

**Secularization emerges through the changing political and economic and
social and religious dynamics of Europe. In emerges gradually and
corrosively within political and religious spheres. I would say that the
intellectuals we know and love today are almost completely irrelevant to
this (the study of social movements should not be equated with the history
of ideas). Check out the writings of Steve Bruce, esp. GOD IS DEAD, for an
excellent study of secularization in relation to social structure. You'll
like his work, I promise.

Ken