/lit/ - Literature

>>13616333
It's a little more than that anon.

>The onus is completely put on the individual to make the right lifestyle choices, which downplays the whole notion of the social and environmental context. What’s happening with corporate mindfulness is a complete denigration of critical thinking into the causes of stress, which are all privatized into the individual. There is also an implicit denigration of collective action and building solidarity. This trope is so common—“Change always starts from within. We first have to change ourselves, take self-responsibility, do self-care.” It’s really similar to the Protestant ethic in some ways. Rather than submitting to the will of God, instead there’s a moral imperative to take care of your own health and well-being. The fact that these corporate initiatives are also [do it yourself] undercuts social change. It’s sending individuals a message that they are the problem, they need to be calm, and they need to regulate.

>In terms of other social movements, the mindfulness movement is an elite social movement, which started with white elite males like Dale Carnegie and the prosperity-gospel guys. It’s quite unlike more grassroots activist movements like the civil rights movement, where you could see a more communitarian strand of mindfulness, run by people of color. There was coming together, talking about our oppression, sharing our vulnerabilities and working together to resist. That was very spiritually and religiously motivated and required a tremendous amount of mindfulness, but in collectives. Nonviolence takes a lot of mindfulness to pull off, but you can’t do it alone. It’s a stark contrast to what we see with these very rich, wealthy white men who are the promoters, who I call mindfulness merchants, and they’re spouting that mindfulness is good for everybody, it’s universal. These differentials in power trouble me, and I think we need to interrogate these differentials.

https://www.thenation.com/article/ron-purser-mcmindfulness-mindfulness-meditation-book-interview/