Adorno and Horkheimer, theorists like Stark and Iannaccone reduce religion
to a theory of compensators, without probing into the conditions that make
compensators necessary. This is exactly the approach to social analysis that
Adorno accuses of “amputating” attention to historicity and the social totality.
Horkheimer and Adorno’s approach to the issue of “consolation” is note-
worthy for the fact that, although it certainly emphasizes the cognitive aspect
of religious belief, it in no way limits itself to a cerebral understanding of “reli-
gion” to the same extent that rational choice narrowly restricts it to belief in
immortality. These two members of the Frankfurt School recognize that the
identity and experience of religious adherents involves far more than cogni-
tive beliefs, but also emotional, social and psychological aspects of relation.
For, although the metaphysical beliefs of the various religious traditions are
considered to be illusions, Horkheimer argues that these same traditions are
intimately linked to human aspirations, which, as they push beyond given
social conditions, connect them to a longing for a better world, and for a con-
nection to objective truth.
As we observed in Adorno’s concept of social totality, his work is con-
cerned to probe the contradictions and social forces that exist behind the
“equilibrium” of the existing state of things. His understanding of the task
of economics and sociology is that they involve “probing the wounds which
this order has and which...it inflicts on us” (2000a:144). He suggests that
these tensions testify to unresolved contradictions in the social order; “suf-
fering is objectivity that weighs upon the subject,” and so “the need to lend
a voice to suffering is the condition of all truth” (1995:17–18). As with
Horkheimer, Adorno conceives of religious discourse as a key expression of
these wounds and suffering. He understands what he calls “metaphysical
experience” to be closely related to religion. This claim is based on the view
that conceptual thought, along with human experience, “has the curious char-
acteristic that, although itself entrapped, locked inside the glasshouse of our
constitution and language, it is nevertheless able constantly to think beyond
itself and its limits, to think itself through the walls of its glasshouse” (2000:68).
This is to say that, in religious discourse, one can observe experiences and
expressions that challenge the dominance of the current societal actuality, as
religion both testifies to, and gives expression to, a concern for alternative
possibilities. This is not by any means to suggest that religion is the only or
the best social location to observe this phenomena, but, for Horkheimer and
Adorno, the analysis of religion offers a richer resource for uncovering evi-
174 • Christopher Craig Brittain