Cruciale tekst: Theodor W. Adorno und Max Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklarung, Philosophische Fragmente (1947)

In 1947, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, two members of the so-called Frankfurt School of Sociology published The Dialectic of Enlightenment. The book, written in exile, did not study national-socialism as an accident or exception in European history, but rather as the result of an ongoing process of rationalization. The authors included a fierce critique of the capitalist modus of (re-)production as ‘culture industry’ that would in the end eliminate rational individuality. Although in the 1940ies the book did not receive very enthusiastic receptions, in the revolutionary sixties of the 20th century, the analytical frame developed in the book received more and more attention. Thinking about theology and religious studies in the 21st century, questions about perceptions of human dignity and individuality cannot go without relating these perceptions to the cultural context in which these are produced.