列維納斯指出，意識形態的本質是人僭越神聖給人劃定的界限，而試圖去看、去把握（理論化）甚至去模擬神聖。現代意識形態的濫用正是緣於知的過度：現代人讓自己的欲望和知的能力越界、偶像化，從而褻瀆神聖的自隱。神聖的自隱本是為了啟示人們：神聖傾空自身，以向他者倫理皈依。而現代人卻以自身的可見性來取代神聖的不可見性，壓抑和遺忘了不可見的他者；他者的消失也就意味著超越性主體的消失，因為在列維納斯看來，真正的主體性在於能夠將他者作為絕對他者來回應。列維納斯指出，意識形態作為一種去主體性的語言，實質上迴避了「與他人面對面」這一倫理向度，而猶太先知傳統卻保留了對語言這一倫理向度的記憶。

For Levinas, the essence of ideology is the transgression, whichis clearly forbidden by God, and which tries to see, to comprehend, totheorize, and even to imitate the divine. The overwhelming abuse ofmodern ideology derives from the excess of the desires and knowledgeof modern people, which leads to idolatry and to the offence ofthe self-concealment of God. God’s self-concealment reveals us hisabsence in order to leave the place for the other. However, modernpeople would like to substitute God’s invisibility by their own visibilitythus to inhibit and forget the invisible Other. The disappearance of theother means also that of the transcendent subject, since according toLevinas, the subject is born exactly in his response to the Other as theabsolute Other. Levinas argues that, as an objective language withoutconsideration of its hearers, ideology avoids in fact the “face to face”encounter with the Other, while the tradition of the prophets keeps thememory of this ethical dimension of language.