ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with the ways in which Frankfurt School critical theory saw art and religion as formally linked: they both could take a similar relationship to society, putting it into question. This analogy is pushed even further, showing how the very idea of a “transformation” of the human can link up to the entire history of religion. Pushing this link allows us to see how critical theory does and does not show affinities to religion. The rest of the chapter considers these possible points of contact, including considering religion as a categorical human pursuit explained by psychoanalytic currents. On such a view, religion is another aspect of the way in which culture develops by repressing certain basic drives and impulses. This leads to a consideration of antisemitism and other kinds of exclusion as a way of refusing to acknowledge the necessity of such repression. Central figures and topics discussed are Marx, Adorno, Marcuse, Scholem, Benjamin, Kafka, Maimonides, negative theology, religion, suffering, Schopenhauer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Black theology, Jewish theology, Kabbalah, mysticism, secularism, antisemitism, Freud, Horkheimer, Fanon, racism, and white nationalism.
