Sustainability can be understood as a critique of the prevailing, alienated relations between self and world. Human impacts on the earth’s natural processes have had dramatic effects on the ecological equilibrium, leading—in light of human dependency on nature—to intra- and inter-generational social turmoil. Non-sustainable thought and action thus create problems in the culture/nature relationship. This perspective on sustainability places the subject at the centre of attention. Ultimately, the subject—as a cultural being and part of nature is (latently) confronted with the contradiction of the destruction of that very natural world and forced to respond to it. If one applies these insights to processes of vocational ecucation, learners (and others) find themselves confronted with a contradiction between accelerating efficiency and growth on the one side and sustainability on the other. In light of the above observations, this theoretical/conceptual contribution examines the following research question: To what extent can the concepts of “resonance” and “sub-politics” help us to analyse the contradiction between social acceleration and sustainability at the level of the subject (in vocational education)?