Rudolf J. Siebert
Toward a Dialectical Sociology of Religion:
A Critique of Positivism and Clerico-Fascism
It is the goal of this essay to trace and explore Max
Horkheimer ’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s and other
critical theorists’ attempts at a dialectical sociology
of religion. This is an integral part of their critical
theory of society, particularly the longing for the fun-
damentally nameless and imageless entirely Other
than what is the case in nature and history, and the
often cruel evolutionary laws governing them (Hork-
heimer 1996:62–67; Adorno 1997:85–87). This critical
theory of religion was developed in opposition to
positivism and neo-positivism as the merely quantify-
ing and mathematizing philosophy of what is imme-
diately given and at hand, and of what is the case,
and of the facts and data, and to fascism, including
national socialism, and to neo-fascism as extreme
forms of an often racially grounded nationalism,
which believes in nothing else than the aristocratic
principle of nature: that is, the unbridled and blind
natural forces and the power of the predator over
the prey, or of the winner over the loser (Adorno
1970; 1979; Marcuse 1966; Hitler 1943:64–65; Taylor
1986; Kogon 1979:24; 1965; Weber 1979; Mosse 1975;
Paassen and Wise 1934; Dubiel 1994; Siebert 1987).
