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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
| I've railed against this "mindfulness" crap in here before. Sometimes I know why I don't like something. Other times, it's a vague feeling and it takes another writer to put into words what my issues are. This is a case of the latter. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/14/the-mindfulness-conspiracy-... The mindfulness conspiracy It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism, but with its inward focus, mindful meditation may be the enemy of activism. Prophesying that its hybrid of science and meditative discipline “has the potential to ignite a universal or global renaissance”, the inventor of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Jon Kabat-Zinn, has bigger ambitions than conquering stress. "Hybrid of science and meditative discipline?" Where's the "science?" Is it studies that show that meditation has beneficial effects? Yeah, we've known that for a long time. I'm not doubting that there's some benefit. So, what exactly is this magic panacea? Magic = not science. Pretty much by definition. The accompanying feature described a signature scene from the standardised course teaching MBSR: eating a raisin very slowly. This shit again. Be the raisin, Danny. But anything that offers success in our unjust society without trying to change it is not revolutionary – it just helps people cope. And here we get to why I have a knee-jerk reaction to "mindfulness." Instead of encouraging radical action, mindfulness says the causes of suffering are disproportionately inside us, not in the political and economic frameworks that shape how we live. The "suffering" bit betrays mindfulness's Buddhist roots. Although derived from Buddhism, it’s been stripped of the teachings on ethics that accompanied it, as well as the liberating aim of dissolving attachment to a false sense of self while enacting compassion for all other beings. Just as science without ethics is dangerous, religion without ethics is bleak and self-serving. I don't know enough about Buddhist ethical teachings to comment on the differences, myself, so I can't really speak to the truth of this quote. Instead of setting practitioners free, it helps them adjust to the very conditions that caused their problems. A truly revolutionary movement would seek to overturn this dysfunctional system, but mindfulness only serves to reinforce its destructive logic. The neoliberal order has imposed itself by stealth in the past few decades, widening inequality in pursuit of corporate wealth. People are expected to adapt to what this model demands of them. Stress has been pathologised and privatised, and the burden of managing it outsourced to individuals. Hence the pedlars of mindfulness step in to save the day. The way I see it, one of the aims of religion since there has been religion has been to preserve the social order by teaching people to accept their place in it, even if that place is unjust. "You are a slave because that's just the way things are. Pray to this god to help you understand why this has to be so, and to make peace with it." Periodically, of course, a new religion crops up that is revolutionary -- and here, by "religion," I'm including systems such as Marxism. The problem with all of these revolutions, of course, is that once they've gone on long enough, they become the establishment, and the establishment proceeds to enforce its own social order. Christianity, for instance, was revolutionary when it began. Then it took over the Western world and started to enforce conformity, urging, for example, peasants to accept their place at the bottom of the social food chain. The fundamental message of the mindfulness movement is that the underlying cause of dissatisfaction and distress is in our heads. Once again, we have the same old refrain as with weight issues or financial distress: it's really your fault, and you're the one who needs to change your mindset. Rather than discussing how attention is monetised and manipulated by corporations such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple, they locate the crisis in our minds. It is not the nature of the capitalist system that is inherently problematic; rather, it is the failure of individuals to be mindful and resilient in a precarious and uncertain economy. Then they sell us solutions that make us contented, mindful capitalists. Capitalism is another "religion" as I use the term above. There's a lot more to the article I'm quoting here; it's fairly long, and I think makes some good points. Whether you agree or not, it's worth the read. Whether it's worth buying the book it's promoting, well, I'm going to remain agnostic about that; I know I'm not buying it any more than I'm buying a course in mindfulness. Bottom line as far as I'm concerned: sometimes it's best to reject the status quo and be a revolutionary. But be mindful that in doing so, all you're really doing is establishing a new social order. |
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