Abstract

I. From Psychoanalysis to Political Christology In the wake of critical theory, Herbert Marcuse interprets the dialectic of enlightenment not only from a Marxist perspective, as the co-optation of the movements toward freedom by the capitalist regime. With Sigmund Freud, he also recognizes the cyclic logic of the civilizing process, which appears in the oedipal dramaturgy. Until now, the father's removal by the son has always been followed by a restoration of the ruling principle through the son, Marcuse writes in Eros and Civilization.1 For Marcuse, enlightenment thus becomes transparent in its oedipal myth. The psychoanalytical insight…