Jewish and Christian theology, which asserts that human beings are created
in God’s image and thus, have free will. This religious notion of the freedom
of will leads Horkheimer to what he terms the greatest teaching in both reli-
gions – the doctrine of original or hereditary sin. Following, yet determi-
nately negating, Schopenhauer ’s pessimistic ontological interpretation of this
teaching, Horkheimer explains the demythologized truth of this doctrine of
original sin in terms of the sacrifice of the other ’s happiness and life chances
in service of one’s own interests and wants. In terms of the materialistic, neg-
ative theology of the critical theory of religion, the personal and social forms
of sin, immorality, selfishness, greed, the domination of one individual, class,
or nation over another, which creates the antagonisms, injustice, suffering
and horror of history are all expressive of this notion of the original sin – not
as an ontological given of human nature but as a matter of free will. This
materialist notion of the mythological original sin is expressive of its con-
crete socio-historical realization through the exploitive capitalist class system
of production and its ever-increasing need for cheap resources, cheap labor
and greater market share, all for the maximization of profit for the capitalist
power elite. It is this latter, capitalist system imperative for the maximization
of profit, which also creates the horrendous suffering and chaos for entire
nations, that is the propulsive engine of the dominant form of what is known
as globalization. This antagonistic social and historical development of mod-
ern society has pushed the liberal principle of the autonomous subject into
the social Darwinistic, survival of the fittest extreme of a monadic, privatized
notion of self, which is isolated from, fearful of, in competition with and
against any other. As stated above, it is this very solipsistic and immoral
notion of subjectivity that is the paradigmatic principle of the Rational Choice
Theory in general and of religion in particular.
The Totally Administered Society
In terms of Horkheimer ’s critical theory of society and religion, it is this
modern, immoral, systematic and globalizing development of capitalist class
antagonisms that is leading historically toward a totally administered and
dehumanized future society. In a prophetic critique of Rational Choice Theory
in all of its manifestations, Horkheimer stated that as long as people continue
to live as isolated, monadic egos, seeking their identity and autonomy only
by satisfying their own desires according to the exploitive system imperatives
The Notion of the Totally “Other” • 147