as if “everything really depended on these interpersonal relationships,” and
not on larger social mechanisms. “What disappears from sociology is not only
the decisive element whereby social activity is able to maintain itself at all,
but also knowledge of how it maintains itself, with what sacrifices, threats
and also with what potentialities for good” (Adorno 2000a:142). For Adorno
and Horkheimer, the social whole cannot simply be reduced to the sum of
its parts.
Adorno’s speculative concept of “social totality” intends to suggest a dialec-
tical theory of society, in order to maintain a notion of “society as a thing-in-
itself” (1976a:12). As such, it serves to “give a name to what secretly holds
the machinery together” (1976b:68). The concept provides a way to appreci-
ate Marx’s critique of ideology in sociological method, and it prevents treat-
ing social structures and experiences as “natural” or a priori. Adorno argues
that “positivist” empirical studies of social action fail to attend to the ways
in which objective social structures shape the subjective actions of human
agents. To ignore this is to ignore the mediated nature of all knowledge and
experience, and the contradictions contained within human society. According
to Adorno, modern society, with its ongoing disparities in distribution of
wealth, access to education and health care, is irrational;
By calling this society irrational I mean that if the purpose of society as a
whole is taken to be the preservation and the unfettering of the people of
which it is composed, then the way in which this society continues to be
arranged runs counter to its own purpose, its raison d’être, its ratio. (2000a:133)Thus, while rational choice theorists might observe how some individuals
behave, and then apply this to their analysis of religious behavior, Adorno’s
critical perspective insists that such an approach represents only one element
of the study of religion. A critical theory of religion includes analyzing, and
perhaps even criticizing, the seemingly “rational choices” that individuals
make, in order to determine the manner and extent to which their subjec-
tivity is shaped by the larger social whole.
Religion and Rational Choice
Both Rodney Stark and Lawrence Iannaccone apply the above three presup-
positions to their analysis of religion in North Atlantic societies. For Stark,
the first premise of rational choice theory regarding the nature of rationality
160 • Christopher Craig Brittain