Abstract

This essay studies the links between the ideas of sacred and community in the Collège de sociologie. In this «institution», established by G. Bataille, R. Caillois and M. Leiris, the criticism of modernity and secularization - which consists in the link between instrumental reason and mass society - is based on the concepts of sacred and myth. For the members of the «Collège», psychoanalytic account and sociology of primitive peoples both show that the social structure is based on a core of violence: they underline the negative element in the social process, to produce a political and cultural alternative to the modern society. Hence, anthropology, ethnology and surrealist avant-garde contribute to create a different language of critical theory, which is very interesting, although problematic.