The TINA principle (“There is no alternative”) is linked to a way of thinking that sees politics as determined by unavoidable constraints and can only conceive of maxims for action within a given framework of capitalist order. The power of the powerful does not last forever; it will have to bow to the power of the one who saves and liberates the oppressed.
“The Fragility of Power” (John Holloway)
Political-theological reflections on the possibility of liberation practices today and the role of social movements
by Julia Lis
[This article posted in 2918 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.itpol.de/lis-die-zerbrechlichkeit-der-macht-holloway/.]
This text is a revised version and was first published in: Prüller-Jagenteufel, Gunter/Perintfalvi, Rita/Schelkshorn, Hans (eds.): Macht und Machtkritik (Power and Critique of Power). Contributions from a feminist-theological and liberation-theological perspective, Aachen 2018. Lis The Disruption of Power (Holloway) This and other articles can be found in the section “Texts.”
1. “There is no alternative?!”
Margaret Thatcher’s repeated assertion that there was no alternative to economic and social policies based on neoliberal reforms and the dismantling of the welfare state has become a catchphrase over the years, but one that has also been widely criticized. It has also been used inflationarily in German politics since 2009, so that “alternativlos” (without alternative) was even chosen as the Unwort des Jahres (Word Without a Word) in 2010.1 The TINA principle (“There is no alternative”) is linked to a way of thinking that sees politics as determined by unavoidable constraints and can only conceive of maxims for action within a given framework of capitalist order.2
Behind the popularity of the dictum of no alternative lies the conviction, widely held since the collapse of the socialist states, that politics and economics must necessarily follow capitalist market logic. The prosperity of humanity can only be secured in the long term through the free play of market forces based on competition and the pursuit of profit.3
In their book Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe the capitalist order as we experience it today as a project in which economic and political power are brought together.4 The title Empire is intended to illustrate the imperial structure of the contemporary world: The ethical-political conception of the empire is based on the idea that its own order is understood as a space that encompasses the entire civilization and is at the same time imagined as unchangeable5: “The empire presents its order as permanent, eternal, and necessary.”6 The empire is not based on violence, but on a consensus in which the use of violence by the empire is legitimized as serving the cause of law and peace, and is thus based on consent to its own power.7
Hardt and Negri describe the concept of biopower, which they borrow from Michel Foucault, as linked to the phenomenon of empire. This involves a transition from a society in which rule is based primarily on the external disciplining of subjects through rules of thought and action, compliance with which is monitored and sanctioned by external authorities, to the form of control society that prevails today.8 Here, subjects are no longer monitored from outside and domination is not enforced by external means of coercion, but discipline and control increasingly take place in people’s minds and shape their everyday practices. Capitalist logic thus not only subjects the production of goods and commodities to itself, but also shapes and manufactures needs, social relations, and bodies according to this logic.9 Foucault described this development as “the entry of life and its mechanisms into the realm of conscious calculation.”10 It is precisely this “responsibility for life that gives power access to the body.”11 Through the processes of individualization, the individual is declared responsible for his or her own life. This can go hand in hand with greater opportunities for autonomy and self-determination, but it also harbors a deep ambivalence: with this responsibility, the individual now also becomes responsible for control over their own body and, ultimately, for the success or failure of their life. Biopower is therefore not about techniques of power based on violence or coercion, but about reaching and directing the consciousness of the individual.12 Biopolitics or biopower thus serve “not to inhibit, break, or even destroy the forces of life, but to continuously develop, enrich, and stimulate them with the intention of optimization and economization.”13
Under the auspices of a neoliberal world order, power can thus be described as domination over human life based on the establishment of ideological hegemony. The concept of hegemony can be understood here in Gramsci’s sense. It is not a question of forced submission, but of one that includes the consent of the subjugated, so that they redefine their own needs and interests on the basis of the hegemonic order.14
This hegemonic order is based on the fact that capitalism appears worldwide as the only possible form of organization of life, to whose constraints all other areas of human life must submit. Thus, the logic of capitalist exploitation permeates all areas of society and makes transcendence, in the sense of an outside of the capital relation, no longer conceivable.15 Under the given circumstances, it is by no means easy to ask for alternatives to break through this predetermined logic. However, protest and resistance against an order that is perceived as unjust and destructive to life are made possible precisely by the fact that something else, a beyond the existing and the evident, is conceivable and thinkable. In this sense, the counter-proposal to the TINA principle with which the anti-globalization movement began was: “Another world is possible.” But how can this possibility be believed and reasonably justified in the face of a neoliberal order that, despite all the crisis rhetoric, remains firmly in the saddle, here in Europe in particular, but also globally?
2. Hope for change as the driving force of theology
Johann Baptist Metz once described the intention and mission of Christian theology as an “apology for hope.”16 Metz describes the hope in question more precisely by speaking of “that solidarity-based hope in the God of the living and the dead, who calls all human beings to be subjects before his face.”17
Christian hope, Metz reminds us, must therefore, if it is to take the biblical tradition seriously, encompass more than the hope for small, private happiness amid all social contradictions and its extension beyond the limits of one’s own death into an “afterlife” imagined as a place of eternal individual happiness. For the biblical promise proclaims a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1), that is, the possibility of a different world that will no longer be marked by injustice and violence. It postulates that a world without oppression and exploitation is possible and can one day become reality. But such hope also demands reasons: “Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you about the hope that fills you” (1 Peter 3:15). Given the constitutive premise of both political theology and liberation theology that there cannot and must not be any separation between secular history and salvation history, since the salvation promised to us by God already wants to become effective in this world,18 it is clear that Christian hope must refer quite concretely to the transformation and reshaping of this world.
According to Jürgen Moltmann, a “theology whose inner motor is hope […] is therefore an interpretation of the biblical history of promise for understanding the present mission of Christianity in the world.”19 The word of promise of a new future “at the same time commands human beings to seek this future,”20 which means a fundamental difference from fatalistic prophecy or mere prognosis.
In Christianity, the emergence of the seemingly impossible new in the midst of the deadly reality of the world is linked to the discourse of resurrection. This connection can be traced back historically to Paul, who formulated his theology of resurrection in the context of Roman imperial rule. In view of Rome’s global power, Paul speaks of a Messiah whose work is to be understood as global, but who cannot simply be thought of in terms of a military counterforce, but rather as an anti-force, in that it is precisely the crucified one who becomes the liberator.21 Only through faith in the resurrection can this idea make sense, since it is from here that a total change of life becomes possible, “that is, the complete change of the conditions under which life must be lived.”22 Thus writes Gerhard Jankowski in his commentary on 1 Cor 15 on Paul’s message of the risen Jesus Christ: “The hope for the resurrection of the dead, for the new creation, for the total change of circumstances, for the new humanity has its firm foundation in his resurrection. This hope can already permeate life. The new humanity has been given a face. The revolt against death can begin.“23 But what can we imagine today, 2000 years after the Corinthian community, by this ”revolt against death“? Where and how can it begin?
3. ”In the beginning is the cry”
For John Holloway, any reflection on the possibility of changing the world must begin with a cry that, in the face of “the mutilation of human life by capitalism, is a cry of grief, a cry of horror, a cry of anger, a cry of refusal.”24 For Holloway, this cry is the starting point for theoretical reflection: anger at the state of the world and pain over suffering and oppression condense into the realization “that the world is, in a certain sense, not true.”25 Against the dictum that there is no alternative, such a cry clings “to the possibility of historical openness; it refuses to exclude the possibility of a radical otherness.”26 It is open to a different future and places the cryer in the inseparable tension between the existing, that which is, and the possible, that which could be.27 Precisely in order to preserve its negative power, the cry cannot and must not turn against itself and become mere despair. Rather, when properly understood, it becomes the starting point for liberating action.
The biblical story of the Exodus tells of such a cry as the starting point of a history of liberation and of liberating action. Thus, in Exodus 3:7ff, God reveals himself to Moses as the one who has heard the cry of the oppressed and exploited people and wants to lead them out of bondage. One could read that the cry of the people already contains the beginning and possibility of their liberation. The cry points to what could be and contrasts it with what is: the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey (Ex 3:8) is contrasted with a reality that makes a dignified human life impossible. It thus opens up the existing order to the future: slavery and oppression are not part of an inevitable order of things that must be endured and suffered, in which God can offer only the prospect of relief from suffering. Rather, the cry of the people opens up a radically new possibility beyond the relationship of oppression, a life in truth and freedom. According to Johann Baptist Metz, “Israel’s gift of God, its capacity for God” is thus revealed “in its inability to be comforted by myths or ideas that are distant from history.”28 Metz contrasts such consolation with the cry that expresses the longing for God and articulates resistance to innocent and unjust suffering as a cry for God.29
The cry of opposition to existing conditions, in which violence and injustice often triumph and make human life impossible, is a cry that expresses the rebellion of life against death. Even the cry of the crucified man, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34) is not to be understood as an expression of despair. In the context of Psalm 22, which is quoted here, it is rather an expression of holding fast to the possibility of God’s saving intervention on behalf of the poor and oppressed. Thus, even in this last cry, opposition and negation of the existing order are expressed: the power of the powerful does not last forever; it will have to bow to the power of the one who saves and liberates the oppressed. Thus, even in this last cry, we hear the possibility of resurrection, which overcomes the power of death. At the moment of death’s supreme triumph over life, of power and violence over the hope of liberation, the possibility of the breaking of power is paradoxically already revealed. However, it also contains the horror of a God who does not (yet) intervene, a horror that reveals the absence of God in this world.30 But even ultimate, deadly violence cannot finally extinguish the cry for liberation. Such a cry brings to consciousness “that the experiences of defeat must not triumph over our hopes.”31 Holding on to these hopes means remembering that there is not just a mere repetition of the same thing, that not everything must always remain as it is. This becomes possible when one understands the possibility of change as constitutive of history. The event, in the sense of a break with what is, thus becomes a possibility within history. The “Arab Spring” could perhaps be described as such an event in recent times: a sudden breaking open of seemingly cemented power structures, opening up the possibility of hope that something completely different is conceivable beyond the existing order.
4. From cry to liberation
At the same time, however, the Arab Spring also shows that the cry, in which anger and hope shine equally brightly, is nothing more than the beginning of a possible process of liberation. The process of liberation can come to a sudden halt, as can be seen in Egypt or Syria: the hope for a new beginning that would make a dignified life possible for all has been stifled by new violence and repression. Beyond the cry, we must therefore ask how it can be transformed not only into the revolt of the moment, but into action that becomes part of a liberation process capable of overcoming power. This raises the question of who the subjects of the liberation process might be. This question is particularly pressing today and not easy to answer. It is still uncertain whether the protests of the Arab Spring, the square occupations of the Occupy movement, and the struggles in Gezi Park can give rise to a political movement that can transform the uprising that emerges from the cry of the opposition and motivates people to hope for and fight for a different future into a new, even international form of organization.
However, heterogeneity is not only the weakness but also the strength of the protests of recent years: a new force lies in the coming together of very different groups and in the joint resistance of those who otherwise have little in common. But how can such heterogeneous groups with different interests become a subject of common struggles? For Holloway, the question of how the fragmentation of struggles and those who fight them can be overcome is a central aspect. The cry is not limited to a specific group. The “we” of those who cry out transcends group affiliations and identity definitions. This does not mean, however, that it is an abstract cry, but rather that it is directed specifically against oppression, exploitation, and dehumanization. However, even the cry cannot be definitively defined and determined; it changes its form to the extent that that against which it is directed also changes its form and intensity.32 The subject of the cry, of the process of liberation, of the struggle against oppression, is therefore not simply present, but is in the process of becoming. It is therefore not yet, it does not return to the safe home, but is on the way to the radically different, involved in a process of liberation which, as an uncertain becoming, means a “pushing beyond” that transcends the given.33
From a biblical, liberation-theological perspective, this “pushing beyond” the given toward the coming completely other can perhaps be described in the categories of a theology of the kingdom of God. Trust in the coming of the kingdom of God is the collective power to transform existing conditions.34 The kingdom of God, in its “going beyond” what exists, can be defined primarily as negation: It “stands against everything that is not the present, but rather the darkening, indeed the negation of the God of Jesus Christ.”35 Through faith in the possibility of the kingdom of God as a world no longer marked by exploitation, dehumanization, and oppression, the people of God are constituted, setting out on the path toward a life of freedom and dignity for all. The coming of the kingdom of God is not to be understood as something without a subject, but is linked to a people of God that cannot simply be equated with the Church.36 The people of God are called to make the kingdom of God a reality together.37
5. And Christians?
From what has been said above, it is clear that Christians cannot simply take it for granted that they are part of the people of God or even that they embody it. Whether or not they belong to the people of God is determined rather by whether or not they meet the criteria just established that are supposed to characterize the people of God. This makes it clear that the question of how Christians can become part of struggles for justice and freedom is not a secondary question about correct Christian practice alone, but rather touches on a core aspect of Christian identity, which can hardly be conceived without belonging to the people of God. We must therefore look for the “signs of the times” that point to the coming of the Kingdom of God or, as Holloway puts it, for the signs “of the presence of the material power of the cry.”38 According to Holloway, the world of struggle against the instrumental power that oppresses and exploits people often appears invisible. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that new struggles are constantly emerging. What they all have in common is that they attempt to make exploitation and oppression by power visible.39 In the context of this process of making visible, many of the struggles currently being waged in our context, in the Federal Republic of Germany and in Austria, can also be understood: the struggle of self-organized migrants in recent years, who have broken out of the invisibility of camps and shelters on the outskirts of cities and gone on hunger strike in tents in the city center to publicly express their despair over a policy of deportation and isolation that robs them of their dignity and their prospects for the future; the struggle of anti-fascist and anti-racist groups who want to expose the racism and indifference to right-wing violence that extends far into the “middle of society”; the feminist struggle against the conditions under which care work takes place and under which people’s needs and desires to shape their own lives are ignored, which addresses work that is all too often invisible in society.
For Christians, this gives rise to the task and responsibility of asking where and how they can get involved in these various struggles to make things visible in order to become part of the people of God in the process of liberation. This can and will only succeed if we manage to articulate anew the cry that breaks open the lack of alternatives and allows the possibility of a “beyond” to the existing order to shine through, and if we allow this to become a beginning in which the fragility of power is already visible. Thus, the question of the places of prophetic speech and action today, of the location and positioning of Christians in struggles against oppression and dehumanization, of the alliances that result from these struggles and the communities that emerge from them, becomes a central task of the church in this day and age.
About the author
Dr. Julia Lis is a research associate at the Institute for Theology and Politics and co-founder of the network Kirchenasyl Münster (Church Asylum Münster). Her work focuses on church asylum, theology in the context of social movements, flight and migration, the church of the poor, and crisis protests. Most recently published together with Norbert Arntz and Philipp Geitzhaus: Erinnern und Erneuern. Provokation aus den Katakomben (Provocation from the Catacombs), Münster 2018, and together with Philipp Geitzhaus and Michael Ramminger: Auf den Spuren einer Kirche der Armen. Zukunft und Orte befreiender Christentums (In the Footsteps of a Church of the Poor: The Future and Places of Liberating Christianity), Münster 2017.
1The jury’s press release stated: “The word suggests, in a factually inappropriate manner, that there were no alternatives in the decision-making process from the outset and therefore no need for discussion and argumentation. Assertions of this kind were made too often in 2010 and threaten to increase political disenchantment among the population.” http://www.unwortdesjahres.net/fileadmin/unwort/download/2010.pdf, accessed on 22 April 2014.
2See Institut für Theologie und Politik (ed.): In Bewegung denken. Politisch-Theologische Anstöße für eine Globalisierung von unten, Münster 2003, p. 130.
3See Strobel, Katja: Zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Solidarität. Arbeit und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Neoliberalismus aus feministisch-befreiungstheologischer Perspektive (Between Self-Determination and Solidarity: Work and Gender Relations in Neoliberalism from a Feminist Liberation Theology Perspective), Münster 2012, p. 60.
4See Hardt, Michael/Negri, Antonio: Empire. Die neue Weltordnung (Empire: The New World Order), Frankfurt/New York 2000, p. 24.
5See Hardt/Negri: Empire, p. 26.
6Hardt/Negri: Empire, p. 27.
7See Hardt/Negri: Empire, p. 31.
8See Hardt/Negri: Empire, p. 38.
9See Hardt/Negri: Empire, p. 46f.
10Foucault, Michel: The Will to Knowledge (Sexuality and Truth 1), Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 138.
11Foucault: The Will to Knowledge, p. 138.
12See Hellgermann, Andreas: Education for ‘Incompetence’ – Messianic-Resistant Religious Education Instead of Neoliberal Competence Brainwashing (Working Paper II of the Working Group of Religious Education Teachers at the Institute for Theology and Politics), Münster 2013, p. 6.
13Seibert, Thomas: Crisis and Event. Twenty-Seven Theses on Communism, Hamburg 2009, p. 30
14See Merkens, Andreas/Rego Diaz, Victor (eds.): Working with Gramsci. Texts on the Political and Practical Appropriation of Antonio Gramsci, Hamburg 2007, p. 19.
15See Seibert: Crisis and Event, p. 128.
16See Metz, Johann Baptist: Faith in History and Society. Studies in Practical Fundamental Theology, Mainz 31980, p. 3.
17Metz: Faith in History and Society, p. 3.
18See Ramminger, Michael: Mitleid und Heimatlosigkeit (Compassion and Homelessness). Two Basic Categories of a Hermeneutics of Recognition (Theology in History and Society 5), Lucerne 1998, p. 14; see also Gutiérrez, Gustavo: Theology of Liberation, Munich 31978, p. 138f.
19Moltmann, Jürgen: The Experiment of Hope. Introductions, Munich 1974, p. 66f.
20Moltmann: Experiment of Hope, p. 69.
21See Veerkamp, Ton: The World Differently. Political History of the Grand Narrative (Berlin Contributions to Critical Theory 13), Berlin 2013, p. 256.
22Veerkamp: Die Welt anders, p. 259.
23Jankowski, Gerhard: Solidarisch leben. Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther. Eine Auslegung, in: Texte & Kontexte 32, 2009, p. 139.
24Holloway, John: Changing the World Without Taking Power, Münster 42010, p. 10.
25Holloway: Changing the World, p. 11.
26Holloway: Changing the World, p. 16.
27See Holloway: Changing the World, p. 16.
28Metz, Johann Baptist: Memoria passionis. A provocative memory in a pluralistic society, Freiburg im Breisgau 2006, p. 9.
29See Metz: Memoria passionis, pp. 98f.
30See Metz: Memoria passionis, p. 94.
31Füssel, Kuno: Overcoming the History of Violence. The Lasting Reminder of the Martyrdom of Oscar Arnulfo Romero, in: Collet, Giancarlo/Rechsteiner, Justin (eds.): To Forget is to Betray. Memories of Oscar A. Romero on the 10th Anniversary of his Death, Wuppertal 1990, p. 109.
32See Holloway: Changing the World, p. 172f.
33See Holloway: Changing the World, p. 175.
34See Weckel, Ludger: For the sake of life. Towards a theology of martyrdom from a liberation theology perspective, Münster 1996, p. 292.
35Ellacuría, Ignacio: The Church of the Poor, Historical Sacrament of Liberation, in: Ibid. / Sobrino, Jon (ed.): Mysterium Liberationis. Basic Concepts of Liberation Theology, Volume 2, Lucerne 1996, p. 768.
36See Ellacuría, Ignacio: A Church of the Poor. For a Prophetic Christianity, Freiburg im Breisgau 2011, p. 166f.
37See Ellacuría: A Church of the Poor, p. 167.
38Holloway: Changing the World, p. 178.
39See Holloway, Changing the World, p. 179.