![]() The second part of the article argues that the introduction of Nicholas Windust shows how neoliberalism may be an experience of rupture or trauma for those outside the developed world. It begins by noting that her experience of neoliberalism is one of process and of immaterial exchange. The article describes Maxine's gradual recognition of her own blindness, and hence of her implication in the harms perpetrated in the name of neoliberalism. In the case of Bleeding Edge, the protagonist, Maxine Tarnow, is implicated in the violence committed in order to secure the hegemony of neoliberalism. The article uses Michael Rothberg's The Implicated Subject (2019) as the basis for analysis, and notably his argument that to be implicated in wrongdoing often involves a kind of structural blindness towards suffering elsewhere. This article argues that in Bleeding Edge, Pynchon moves from an oppositional schema in which the world is divided into “elect” and “preterite” populations towards one that is concerned with implication and complicity. In pursuit of this thesis, the essay utilizes a theoretical framework guided by the contributions of scholars including Wendy Brown, Walter Benjamin, Olivier Roy, Walter Mignolo, and Carl Raschke in order to analyze Amway through the lens of contemporary political theories of neoliberalism. The conclusion explores the possibility of a decolonial American evangelicalism, which would seek options for broadening the horizons of American evangelicalism beyond the relationship to neoliberalism and the possibility of a critical theology robust enough to thoughtfully critique neoliberalism. As this amalgamation demonstrates, people may defend neoliberalism with a similar fervor as defending cultural or religious traditions. What sets Amway apart from other MLMs, and makes Amway a prime case study for neoliberalism and religious practices, is its amalgamation of neoliberal ideology with ideas and trends from American evangelicalism, to the extent that it serves as a kind of neoliberal religious tradition. My argument is that Amway serves as a prime case study for the relation between neoliberalism and religious practices––people desire their continued oppression under neoliberalism in part because neoliberalism bears meaning at the level of culture and religion. Why do people desire their own continued oppression under neoliberalism? This essay seeks an answer to this confounding question through analysis of the Amway organization, an American multi-level-marketing (MLM) company that rose to a multi-billion dollar value in the 1980s and 90s.
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