AMBIVALENT SUBJECTS – LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND SUCCESSION PRACTICE IN NEOLIBERALISM
by Philipp Geitzhaus and Julia Lispublished in Gmainer-Pranzl, Franz/Lassak, Sandra/Weiler, Birgit (ed.): Theologie der Befreiung heute. Challenges - Transformations - Impulses. Salzburger Theologische Studien 57, Innsbruck 2017, pp. 155-174. The article is also available as PDF under "Texts" and here: Geitzhaus Lis Ambivalent Subjects
[This reading sample published by the Munster Institute for Theology and Politics in 2017 is translated from the German on the Internet..]
1. Current liberation theology
The time of the great church-political disputes about liberation theology, as it was formative for the 1980s, seems to be over. On the one hand, liberation theology has been forgotten by many - thus, just like New Political Theology, it plays only a marginal role within the university landscape in German-speaking countries. On the other handperhaps also due to this marginality - the arguments about liberation theology have become much less sharp: also outside the small group of left-wing Christians the fundamental concern of an option for the poor/others often meets with a broad approval. The insight that Christianity has to do with conscious shaping and changing of the world is in many church circles just as capable of consensus as it mostly remains without consistency.1
Liberation theology today in German-speaking countries is thus confronted less with hostility than with cautious interest, an interest, of course, in which in view of the frustrating experience of the own marginality of the former people's churches and the loss of meaning of one's own tradition, as it is painfully experienced by many Christians in this country, often the longing for a living church, which still has something to say to the people, mixes. Thus the projection of another Latin American church emerges: colourful, full of life, with grassroots congregations in which active lay people read the Bible together and engage socially, in which liturgy and spirituality still have an everyday relevance - and this image is often associated with the keyword "liberation theology".
But also the appearance of liberation theology, or better said, of the theologies which today understand themselves as liberating theologies in connection with the tradition of liberation theology, has become another one. Today it focuses on the perception of many cultures and numerous identities. Thus, as Victor Codina states in this volume, it is increasingly a question not only of socio-economic, but also of cultural, religious, ecological and gender questions. And beside "the poor" new subjects of liberating theologies emerge, the option for the poor is extended by the option for youth, women, indigenous people and much more. This goes hand in hand with the claim, also emphasized by Codina, to develop a new methodology "that is more symbolic and narrative, more emotional and more testimonious, neither androcentric nor eurocentric "2.
In order to decide how these new developments within liberation theology are to be judged, to what extent they open up new possibilities, potentials and scope for action, but also where their limitations and dangers can lie, it seems necessary to us in a first step to ask with which conditions, in socio-economic, cultural as well as church perspective liberation theology today is confronted. On this basis then in a second step perspectives for a liberation theology are to be shown.
2. Under neoliberal conditions
In our opinion, the decisive, given framework in which theology and any practice at all take place today is neoliberalism or neoliberal capitalism. What seems crucial to us here is that this in its globalized form does not only affect the sphere of the economy, but also determines the economic, political and ideological conditions under which people all over the globe work, love, fight, consume, starve, believe, travel, hope, offer resistance, etc. This indicates a wide range of what we understand to be neoliberally structured. In the following, we assume that neoliberalism is more than just an idea, but rather a rationalization principle that has become objectified in numerous social areas and has already become objectified and thus transformed these areas. The transformation processes range "from money relations to labor and production relations, gender and class relations to state and spatio-temporal relations. "3 Thinking about neoliberalism does not only mean reflecting on the economic structure of production and the market or on the relationship between the economic and the political spheres, but the neoliberal structure also permeates the field of culture or education, sexuality or religion.
Michel Foucault had already described liberalism in the USA, which marked the development of human capital theory and thus of what we here understand by neoliberalism, as a "way of being and thinking "4 . Neoliberalism thus describes a paradigm shift in political economy; it is no longer just a matter of examining mechanisms of production and exchange, but the economy is assigned the task of "analyzing human behavior and the inner rationality of this behavior.
The neoliberal understanding of labor and human capital plays a decisive role here. The wage is understood as income from capital derived from the physical, psychological, intellectual, etc., and the social, economic, and social capital of the individual. The wage is defined as an income from capital that consists of physical, psychological, intellectual, etc. Skills that enable someone to earn a certain income. So this kind of capital remains inseparably linked to the person who owns it. This means that anyone who works for a wage is no longer just a provider of labour on the labour market, but a kind of business in its own right. Society as a whole will then be seen as made up of individual companies. Man appears as a homo oeconomicus, but no longer in the classical sense of an exchange partner, but of an entrepreneur of his own.6
2.1 The entrepreneurial self
The concept of the entrepreneurial self was worked out in the German-speaking area above all by Ulrich Bröckling following Foucault. In his analyses of the entrepreneurial self, Bröckling shows how human action and thinking, i.e. human practice in a very comprehensive sense, is oriented towards entrepreneurial action. "The entrepreneurial self forms the vanishing point of those lines of force which - among other things - are effective in institutional arrangements and administrative regulations, in employment and insurance contracts, in training programmes and theoretical concepts, in media productions and everyday performances. In the figure of the enterprising self a multitude of current subjectivation programs are condensed, whose common telos represent the orientation of the entire lifestyle towards entrepreneurial action "7 The entrepreneurial self does not denote a special type of socialization or a group of existing or model-like subjects, but rather the "way in which individuals are addressed as persons and at the same time the direction in which they are to be changed and are to change "8. Entrepreneurial action is treated as orientation or even as a norm in different institutions and programs. It is about "the orientation of the entire lifestyle towards the behavioural model of entrepreneurship "9. This encompasses all areas of life, subjects them to the pressure of economisation and thus ultimately abolishes the separation of gainful employment and private life.10
At the same time, the self-regulation and personal responsibility of the individual should be strengthened in order to enable them to manage their affairs better and better, to define and operationalise goals and to satisfy their own needs on their own, as well as to overcome and master the problems that arise in the process.11 "Entrepreneurial action is contingency management, economic calculation, the orientation of all activities towards improving market opportunities. The illusionary as well as totalitarian utopias of exact forecasting and planning have been abandoned and the postulate of permanent optimization has remained "12 This rationality has also been transferred to individuals through numerous instances in recent decades. Or rather, if the market tends to become the authority that standardizes everything, then all individuals are increasingly dependent on asserting themselves in these events. What is decisive is that it is not a matter of creating error-free or crisis-free situations, but of developing a rationality that can deal with crises and contradictions. Those who are in a position to master crises as adequately as possible, i.e. to adapt to market events in their contingency and flexibility, will also be able to assert themselves.
It is important to understand that the concept of the entrepreneurial self does not mean a simple "unification" of individuals, as known from some distopias. On the contrary, it is a prerequisite for the success of the entrepreneurial self to be as individual and unique as possible. Just as a car or a shoe must prove its novelty and uniqueness, people should also sell themselves with their uniqueness or as uniqueness. This individuality is therefore an integral part of the human capital, part of the company "I". The individuality of the subjects does not go beyond the logic of neoliberalism, but is its part. Neoliberalism, unlike Fordism, does not rely on discipline, uniformity and conformity, but promises "freedom, individuality and autonomy "13 But at the same time this individuality is subject to the market, its own human capital with the possibilities and competences at its disposal competes with many other companies "I". Distinction from others is part of the
creation of an unmistakable "I" brand and thus creates competitive advantages. In addition the own label must exhibit however a quality, which is recognized and honored by potential customers, whether they employer inside or relationship partner inside, also accordingly.14
This creates a complex relationship between normalisation (all are bound to the contingency of the market) and individualisation (each must be special). Bröckling assumes a change in this complex relationship: "The catchword of patchwork identity, widespread in the subjectivity theories of the 80s and 90s, still needs to be radicalized: Not a patchwork carpet that, once woven, no longer changes its pattern resembles the entrepreneurial self, but a kaleidoscope that shows a new image with every shake. "15 What Bröckling points to is the high degree of flexibility that one must assume when dealing with neoliberalism and its forms today. This goes hand in hand with the neoliberal idea of innovation, which sees investments in human capital as one of the most modifiable prerequisites for growth.16 What neoliberalism (tends to) promote are precisely the capacities of people who increase their human capital, i.e. their creativity, their problem-oriented action, their ability to take responsibility: "The ideal individual is no longer measured by his or her ability to be amenable, but by his or her initiative. "17
But the call to creativity and responsibility is at the same time a compulsion: Be creative and present yourself, make yourself the entrepreneur of your abilities and take responsibility for your success or failure. Structurally, the resulting tension, caused in part by contradictory demands, is quite deliberate: it is regarded as the driving force for a continued self-optimization process that should never come to an end. In the background is the mechanism of competition: whoever rests on what has been achieved will soon have missed the boat.18
Katja Strobel19 has analysed this process of assuming responsibility, which was carried out by labour market reforms in Germany in recent years (Agenda 2010), in detail and highlighted the theological problems associated with it. Strobel states that although "[the capacity to act] becomes more flexible and multiplies [...] in work processes on the one hand, on the other hand action-guiding structures fall away and thus force individuals more and more to structure their own actions themselves. The demands on selforganisation and self-regulation of the individual are increasing "20 This applies in particular to women, who still have to take on a great deal of care work in addition to wage labour.21 The reduction of regulation and external discipline is increasingly making the individual the sole responsible person for their actions.22 Every person stands by the permanent task of choosing and deciding everything.23 Thus the entrepreneurial self, the economically oriented subject, means for most people a "compulsion to freedom and responsibility", a freedom and responsibility that are ultimately unsustainable.
2.2 Subjects and Processes of Subjectivation
Every process of subjectivation is a paradoxical process. For subjects do not simply exist, they are constructed by certain practices, brought to life by certain practices. Such practices can be called subjectivation. At the same time, however, the act of
subjectivation presupposes that a subject has already been constituted that can carry out this act.24 In this sense, one cannot merely speak of subjects that are at some point finished, but subjects are always in a process of subjectivation, that is, in the process of their constitution. For Foucault - as well as for Bröckling - the subject is an individual who is bound to a certain identity, or a conglomerate of identities, by certain social practices. A subject, in this theoretical line of tradition, emerges as an ensemble of social relations (Marx)25. For an individual to achieve its realization, social relations must therefore be influenced or changed, instead of appealing to some core, an essence in the individual. So if the subject is determined by social conditions, subjectivation has to do fundamentally with power relations: On the one hand, the subject is always the effect of power interventions; on the other hand, power can only be exercised through subjects that are not completely determined.26 Subjectivation is thus always already ambivalent: on the one hand, it means subjection through control and dependence, on the other hand, the production of the capacity to act through the attainment of consciousness and identity.27 This means that one has to say goodbye to the notion of static domination and full control.
In neoliberalism, domination is no longer exercised primarily externally; it is internalized by the subjects. Within a process of subjectivation aimed at producing the entrepreneurial self, the subject works on its self-optimization, supported by professional consultants. However, this self-control does not take place in a vacuum, but under socially generated conditions as the result of immanent control processes that are produced discursively.28 The form of subjectivation of the entrepreneurial self, unlike the classical notions of human beings as homo economicus, thus does not tie in with the assumption that subjects already act rationally and economically by nature, but, through the permanent process of subjectivation, first produces and activates the subject acting entrepreneurially.29
3. Appropriation of critique and resistance
The problem of this form of subjectivation, the construction of entrepreneurial rationality, concerns in particular the possibility of adopting and developing a critical relationship to or a more or less organised resistance to neoliberalism. Today, resistances face the difficulty of being reintegrated into neoliberalism on the one hand "from outside" due to its flexible structure, and on the other hand of orienting oneself towards the market and its conditions. Re-integration from outside is often not even repressive at all, as is the case with numerous combats of the involvement of trade unions or social movements, etc. This phenomenon is "accustomed" to the neo-liberal world, even though it continues to exist in neo-liberalism. Re-integration into the market and thus into neoliberalism is practised by marketing resistance and by adopting entrepreneurial (customer-oriented) rationality. This applies in particular to forms of resistance that are defined by one or more specific identities. Today there are numerous protests that emphasize a certain identity in order to reveal its suppression by certain structures or persons or to indicate that they do not (want to) see themselves represented by certain structures. But it is precisely this emphasis on identities that makes it possible to create "brands" again. One could carefully say that identities, the more differentiated they are, are "created" for the market, because they emphasize peculiarities, unique selling propositions and thus above
all individualization processes. According to Alain Badiou, following Gilles Deleuze, "The capitalist logic of the general equivalent and the identitary and cultural logic of communities or minorities together form an articulated set "30 This means that these identitary singularities are the appropriate counterpart to a capitalist logic that always needs new products and new markets.
This process is accompanied by new forms of enterprise and their management concepts. "If subjectivity marked the point de resistance against "alienating" working conditions in traditional trade union or left-wing radical discourses, management concepts [...] make it a resource to be exploited in social technology "31 The question is how autonomy, creativity, singularity or group work can be made usable for production processes and consumer purposes. The principle applies that the more individual the people, the more individual the products must become. Paradoxically, to fall outside the norm to a certain extent becomes an obligation. Resistive action can be interpreted, for example, as a quality of leadership or as a break with what is already known and thus reintegrated into the market.
This means that today a resistance, even one that succeeds to a certain extent in not being subject to entrepreneurial self-government, is exposed to the danger of again corresponding to the desired plural indifference of neoliberalism. Rule in neoliberalism can no longer be understood statically. Neoliberal rule is expressed precisely by its dynamics, or rather by its capacity for cooperation and integration. "The boundaries between criticism and affirmation become blurred when non-conformism is incorporated into the norm and every objection as cybernetic feedback, signaling the need for adaptation and enabling flexible moderation. 32
Even if the triumph of neoliberalism means a history of violence and repression and has imposed its rationality on the one hand through the (considerable) coercion of the population - Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship may be the best known example hereso neoliberal rule - and this is decisive - is also based on its ability to generate broad social approval: "Rather, the entrepreneurial self [...] could only become a hegemonic figure because it followed a collective desire for autonomy, self-realization, and nonalienated labor "33.
Neoliberal rule does not rely on the powerlessness of the individual through incapacitation, but rather on the increase of power potentials of the powerless, for example through techniques of empowerment.34 Here, too, however, the ambivalence of neoliberal autonomy is concealed: the decision as to who is to be activated in which way is itself a form of exercising power.35 At the same time, the problem is not sought in the objectively unequal distribution of power, but in the subjects themselves, whose consciousness is to change in such a way that they become capable of overcoming the feeling of powerlessness: Change is therefore first and foremost always change of the subject itself. "An antagonism between the powerful and the powerless is replaced by a synergistic model that promises reconciliation and balance "36. At the same time, however, autonomy conceived in neoliberal categories always remains integrated into the "paradoxical program of controlled autonomy "37. This is related to the fact that
neoliberalism does not offer a specific solution for social contradictions or crises. According to Mario Candeias, "it is not the closure or resolution of contradictions that is [decisive], but rather making them workable in such a way that they remain controllable. "38
4. Hope for liberation?
The concern of any liberation theology is, biblically speaking, the realization of the Kingdom of God. This means a life in equality and freedom for all, which does not let the hope of the dead fail.
What does the problem of neoliberalism described here, above all the form of the entrepreneurial self, mean for such a hope for liberation and thus also for the conditions of today's liberation theology? As formulated at the beginning, a liberation theology oriented towards the Kingdom of God must ask about the conditions under which today emancipatory action or the realization of the Kingdom of God takes place and can take place. Which aspects of contemporary society must be criticized for this? Where can change begin? How can one speak of hope for liberation, for a life in freedom and equality in such a way that people begin to give shape to this hope?
To this end, it must also be analysed to what extent liberating theologies do justice to their liberating claim in the first place, and in what way they can at least succeed in avoiding re-integration into the logic of the market. For, as shown above, it cannot be assumed that neoliberalism is automatically opposed by (not only supposedly!) practiced resistance, if it is characterized by its ability to integrate all resistance.
From this perspective, it seems necessary to take a closer look at the discourses prevailing in today's liberating theology and to ask what challenges they face with regard to their contribution to the process of liberation. Current liberating theologies are characterized above all by their critique of universalisms on the one hand and of the emphasis on the singular on the other. In her book Postcolonial Imagination & Feminist Theology, postcolonial theologian Pui-Ian Kwok formulates this critique in the following warning: "I don't want to blame anyone for longing for a meaningful whole, but I want to warn against the enormous power of this longing - this temptation to form things into a single, unified, seemingly seamless whole "39 The scepticism toward this "temptation" of universalist ideas and practices is all too understandable in the face of numerous failed large-scale projects: Projects, even emancipatory ones, which often failed to prove their truth because of their repressive character "inwardly". The 20th century holds many frightening examples in this respect. But even on a small scale, where it is not about terror and repression, but about overlooking the concerns of women, homosexuals and indigenous people, the limits of an emancipatory project are often revealed.
There are good reasons for emphasizing the heterogeneity, perhaps even the incompatibility, of movements, identities and oppressions. Some emancipatory movements cannot be directly translated into others and dissolved. The French philosopher Étienne Balibar, who intensively analyses the relationship between
insurrection, violence and emancipation, emphasises that among emancipatory movements (even with reference to some ideal universality) "there can be no prestabilized harmony". 40 It is one thing to formulate the "option for the poor" theoretically and to make it a hermeneutic principle; another is to do justice to the differentiated reality of poverty. In many cases the concept of poverty is even misplaced, which is why liberation theology began to speak of the option for others or the option for the marginalized. But must we conclude from this that the "real universality" (Balibar) of neoliberalism in its globalized form, which tends to individualize all human beings, can only be countered through particular processes? Aren't these particular, ultimately fragmented processes in danger of being absorbed into the logic of self-marketing? Or is it not above all the particularity that allows resistance to be integrated into the market of diverse products and brands and thus makes it governable? Is it in this way, or rather in these many ways, possible to encounter this real universality at all, or must one say goodbye to the idea of a comprehensive overcoming of these conditions, i.e. the hope of great justice for all? Balibar does not take this path. The fact that resistance is in principle heterogeneous, that there is no "natural front", "does not mean at all that such a unity cannot exist under certain circumstances. 41 This decision is above all one based on the assumption that solidarity, or fraternity, is possible, and that solidarity is based on the possibility that borders, identities and unique oppressions (sufferings) can be crossed; that connections are possible despite existing heterogeneity. Accordingly, according to Balibar, "[with] all sharpness [...] the question arises as to how resistance can be universalized without the idea of identities as exclusive alterity being incessantly reproduced and exploited, consolidated and sanctioned by the system."42 For a liberating theology this means not following the logic of fragmentation, which, whether intentional or not, today actually functions as the basis of neoliberalism, but rather working out to what extent solidarity, i.e. to what extent a "universalism from below" that opposes a neoliberal globalization, is possible.43
But how can one meaningfully speak of universality? For Balibar, the principles of freedom and equality are the orientation for emancipatory projects. But both principles must be understood as a unity: Freedom is only possible under the condition of equality and vice versa, equality can only be realized in freedom, so that the negation of one automatically prevents the other. The connection of the two principles is also to be considered therefore absolutely, since today both, above all the principle of freedom as perverted are demanded from humans. In this respect, both principles are anything but unambiguous today if they are not defined in more detail. In order to express this unity conceptually, Balibar uses the neologism of equality freedom (French: égaliberté).44 This equality freedom can only be claimed and achieved, but not granted. It can only be proved true by its carriers. In its structure, however, equality is only conceivable as a universal freedom. If the validity of freedom and equality is not claimed in principle for all (and in principle for all) human beings, it automatically negates itself. Balibar summarizes as follows: "Of course, equality and liberty rights are individual rights - their bearers and plaintiffs can only be individuals. But the double abolition of coercive force and discrimination (what we can call emancipation) is always a clearly collective process. It can only take place when numerous (potentially all) individuals unite their forces
against oppression, social hierarchies and inequalities. In other words, freedom and equality can never be granted or given to people; they can only be achieved. "45
5. And theology?
From this perspective a theology which has not given up the hope for liberation, nor can it give up without becoming unfaithful to its fundamental orientation towards the Kingdom of God, can give shape to the question of how it speaks of this hope in view of the conditions of neoliberalism in such a way that the criticism practiced here cannot be too easily integrated neoliberally. Instead, there is the challenge of developing a genuine alternative to neoliberal logic. How can succession - in its mystical-political double structure (Metz) - become effective in neoliberalism? What can be basic categories with which theologically meaningful work can be done today? And how can a theological becoming of a subject be thought of that remains directed towards other than entrepreneurial subjects?
One prerequisite seems to be the revealing dimension of theological speech: theology, in the sense of a Christian, biblically founded theology, thus begins with the critique of religion and ideology. It questions the usual religious, economic and political interpretations and explanation patterns in such a way that it tries to recognize who or what functions as God, in the sense of ultimate commitment or of the principle on which a certain order is based.46 In this way it exposes the interests behind ideological and religious determinations. In order to come closer to life in freedom and equality in reality, we must first uncover the mechanisms that prevent such a life and are often religiously and ideologically veiled. To this end, theology confronts the prevailing conditions with their dark side, refusing to conceal the suffering caused by them. For suffering, especially in its immediate somatic form (physical suffering), always testifies to the imperfection or even failure of the existing.47
A theology which understands itself as emancipatory cannot be satisfied with this failure without having to be reproached for surrendering to the existing or for repressing its reality. That is why the definition of New Political Theology given almost 40 years ago by Johann Baptist Metz as the apology of a hope, the hope for the God of the living and the dead, for a universal salvation, is still relevant today.48 Perhaps it is valid today more than ever. Metz occupied the subject in its bourgeois, individualized form. The subject, so his critique of conventional theology, is seen only in its ego-du relationship, but not in its social constitution of late capitalism. With reference to Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Metz pointed to the dialectic of the Enlightenment, which among other things represented a critique of progress optimism, and its significance for theology. At the same time, however, it was not a question of abandoning the concept of the subject, but of redefining it politically-theologically with the aim that all people become subjects in solidarity before God. For this purpose Metz developed three interwoven basic categories: The memory, the narrative and the solidarity, respectively the dangerous memory in the sense of a solidarity "backwards", the narration of past stories of suffering and liberation as well as the solidarity, as universal love of neighbor, farthest and enemy.49 Later these categories are extended by those of the "compassion".50 These
political-theological basic categories can be interpreted as an attempt of an intervention, as dangerous "sting", into the late capitalist consciousness (not only of theology!).
"'Dangerous' in this context means that the status quo is endangered because change becomes tangible, and that possibilities of change appear through the memory of suffering, but also of liberation stories "51 as Strobel aptly specifies. Most radically (and consistently!) this understanding of the function of theology is probably expressed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who inspired the New Political Theology in many ways when he provocatively understood theology as a "weapon "52 .
In our opinion these categories unfold their meaning in a special way in the face of the changed conditions of neoliberalism. It is they who point out conceptual perspectives against individualization and de-solidarization, both spatially (geographically) and temporally (historically). They are categories that question any "functioning" in the contingency space "market" and point the way to another path. Succession and refusal to neoliberalism are not formulated again in the most individual "brands" or identities possible, but in its relational, dependant and above all universalizing dimensions.
6. Conclusion: Ambivalent subjects - neoliberal subjectivation and theology as thinking of a becoming of all subjects
What we presented in the first part of this article is not, of course, a complete description and problematization of what can be understood by neoliberalism and, of course, even less what can be said about "the state of the world". The epistemological shift from discipline to the tendency to promote creativity (to the compulsion to be creative) means for very few people an improvement of their life situations. On the contrary. The result of these processes can be described as disastrous. José Antonio Zamora therefore speaks of the victimizing character of neoliberalism, of a system that generates social suffering [sp.: sufrimiento social] or social victimization [sp.: victimación social] on a massive scale.53 The promotion, or better, the demand of the individual has also led to an imposed assumption of responsibility, which for most people is psychologically and materially (financially) unacceptable. Because of these extremely difficult living conditions many people all over the world take to the streets.54 Whether in Santiago de Chile against the prevailing education policy, in Rio de Janeiro against the football World Cup or in Frankfurt against the austerity policy of the troika (block-up protests), in many places resistance is articulated against this economization and the accompanying destruction of life. Some theorists, such as Thomas Seibert or Silvia Federici55 , therefore also speak of the movement of movements. This means becoming aware of the commonalities of different resistances in different contexts and regions of the world. The question of the subjects of resistance, but also of what their particularity can overcome, is, in our opinion, once again a matter of urgency today.
Thus our contribution also focuses on the issue of ambivalent processes of subjectivation. The aim of our contribution was to shed light on the difficulties with which the logic of neoliberalism today confronts resistance and thus liberating theologies, and to show their connection with the problem of subjectivation. The problem, as we think, is not simply that there is no resistance, no subjects of conscious emancipatory world change. These
exist (though not in abundance). Rather, the logic of neoliberalism consists precisely in making these resistances workable, in the same way as contradictions and crises are made workable through appropriate management. This does not necessarily solve crises (whether global or personal), but interprets them as challenges that must be mastered in the best possible way, in the sense of the above-mentioned contingency management. However, this form of rationality is not only practiced in institutions or companies, but is also demanded of individuals.56 This process cannot only be reduced to working conditions, although it is particularly pronounced here, but the form of rationality has meanwhile permeated many areas of society in various regions of the world. If today we think about resistance and criticism and thus also about the possibility of liberation theology, perhaps even about becoming a subject before God - under neoliberal conditions - we must therefore state an ambivalence of these subjects. Insofar as subjectivity has become a central hinge, or better said: a product and a condition of production in neoliberalism, the process of subjectivation must be taken into account, where resistance, criticism and also becoming a subject before God are spoken of.