The mindfulness conspiracy
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The author seems to have a clear bias that radical == good, and this puts me off. Radical action can be good, and it can be bad. Mindfulness can help us see which case is which.
It doesn't sound like the author has done any mindfulness practice
If it helps one activist and million corporate drones and people looking for status quo, the practice is not on the whole a friend of activism. So what are the numbers?
Perhaps a study on how many activists quit when using or not using mindfulness techniques. Though the confounder is huge, people trying this have some sort of a psychological problem most of the time...
Good walk for two-three hours would do better than mindfullness session.
(hint: after about 25-40 minutes of intensive walking you start to burn fat primarily; this process has a side effect of endocannabinoids' release [1]; you get healthier and get high at same time; I am not including here release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor for you to discover it and effects of BDNF serum level increase on the mental state and thinking)
"Societal problems", "unjust society", " systemic change that might remove it".
Mindfulness is somewhat oversold these days, but his understanding of it seems very simplistic "Mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training."
Surprise surprise, he has a book to sell about it. https://guardianbookshop.com/mcmindfulness-9781912248315.htm...
I'm pretty sure a Syrian or a Venezuelan, for example, who was living in way better conditions a decade ago, can very easily agree that this is so.
The relative stability and prosperity aside (which itself is arguable, with a declining middle class and stagnant wages, but anyway), I'm not so sure why it's so hard for e.g. many Americans to see this, as if today is the culmination of anything good in history.
Yes, today they have black civil or gay rights that they didn't in the 30s. They also have more mass shootings than any other time, more inequality, a opioid epidemic, tons of police shootings of blacks, more incarcerated people than any other time, not the best president (and neither the best democratic opponents), and lots of other issues besides. And while TV might be better today, it's not the most memorable decades for movies or novels.
Technology is cumulative (short of a catastrophic event, like the fall of Rome). Culture and society and politics are almost a random walk. They can go either way. Even the most sophisticated societal advancements can go away in a heartbeat, as they found in '30s Germany...
Considering the situation of Afroamericans, I think you underappreciate the amount of lynchings, violence (not just by police) and structural discrimination that took place. All of that is at a record low, if still much too high.
There is still a lot of work to be done, but undoubtedly their situation has improved, long term.
Unfortunately it does, in two ways. One is objective, the other can be argued, but is my opinion nonetheless.
1) Inequality has seen the "poorer part of a society" slid backwards in many objectively measured standards of living, from infant mortality to overall life expectancy, to home ownership, retirement savings, and so on. Those are in absolute (and inflation adjusted when needed) values, worse than in the past.
2) Humans are not mere animals, and their progress, self-respect, etc are not just absolute, but also relative to the overall resources available. We don't compare ourselves to cavemen era people or to 1928 people, but to what's available today. More people having less share of their society's wealth is a slide backwards, even if each has more toys than someone in 1970s or 3000 B.C. had. In other words, "median share of society's wealth per person" is also a metric to keep track of over time.
(And the more important stuff, like homes, health care, education, are increasingly priced out of reach, even relative to 1970 or 1980, so that's a slide backwards whether seen relatively or in absolute terms).
I can directly speak for Germany, and the points you mention just don't hold true. Our whole society improved, despite rising inequality, perceived and measured.
For the US you cite particular measures. I'm not sure those are necessarily comprehensive and even if so, it's only a very tiny backslide, and also only for a relatively tiny percentage of the population.
Also I'm looking more at the long term trends, and those are looking up, in general, all over the world. Including infant mortality (the absolute number of children dying declined for at least 50 years straight, despite more children being born up to relatively recently, see peak child phenomenon), life expectancy and absolute poverty.
Individual wealth is not about the share of the total wealth in a society. At least for me it is about suffering, and the reasons for suffering are indeed decreasing. Maybe not for any time period and any country you choose, but overall, yes.
Routers and Guardian are my only go to sources where I don't have to outright be suspicious of anything they write (with some caveats for guardian).
Reuters seems reliable and don't seem to want to perpetuate partisanship in the way that The Guardian has lately. Having an agenda is fine, having that agenda be perpetuating pointless conflict with "the others", and proving how intelligent we in the in-group are is not very useful. This article was just the final straw. I come from Norway which isn't a two-party nation so I think this enters into my dislike for the black and white thinking that seems to be growing in the Anglosphere where I currently live.
In general, complaining that the pop culture version of something is shallow and ineffective compared to a full understanding (which ironically, the author lacks), could be generalized without lack of accuracy. If you did that, it would be hard to find some ideolical construct to point a finger at, which seems to be his main objective.
Pushing your opinion is obviously okay in a newspaper. That's his right. I just won't be paying for it.
I've lately noticed a gradual decrease in the "detached analysis" coming out of The Guardian in favor of more idealist in-group circle-self-satisfaction. This probably feels good for some people but I don't think it's the way forward.
That narrowing is induced by neoliberal ideology, as he thinks. I do too, by the way.
He even introduced me to "disimagination" neologism which I greatly admire, and I am not even done with the article.
I suspect that any patterns wouldn't be that visible as people can be dissatisfied for many reasons but for major events it might be interesting.
I also want to do a bot that counts on "why am I being downvoted" "not sure why you are being downvoted" comments here and on Reddit! The bot could reply based on analysis of the user, if they are newbies, if they are troll, if they do actually know why but are just registering support etc ...
What happens when we have nothing to think about but thoughts? We lose ourselves in the content of thought without seeing them for what they really are.
Human says "my thoughts", yet believes himself to be the content of the thoughts, the seemingly very important thoughts that start with "I" and everything that comes after it.
Where are the thoughts appearing in? That's you.
And staying in this perspective on purpose is mindfulness.
And being mindful sets a lot of things straight.
Radical change starts within and everything outside follows after it. And you don't need to do anything for it. In fact, sometimes you need not to.
> mindfulness is just that. His opinion.
Except, it's not labeled as opinion. At this point I just consider the entirely of The Guardian an an opinion piece.
I think the problem is that the author thinks his opinions are facts,though.
Opinion pieces, no matter how biased and disagreeable, are still necessary. Facts do not make one think on their own. I would like more facts in them.
> still necessary.
I don't disagree, I just believe they should be very clearly labelled as such.
There's more demand for spin based journalism (or activist journalism) than reporting nowadays. I suppose The Guardian - like others - are following the market trend.
Like what?
With a background of ever-increasing pressures on the individual to perform, the author rightfully calls out self-help for being "damage control procedures" only: practices that can help individuals cope with an untenable situation for longer.
The manner of the calling-out is hyperbole and full of opinions but in my opinion there is some truth at the core.
The only thing I've seen in all my travels that made anyone any happier is strong family ties.
Which ones are you thinking of?
This totally rewired my brain and I had to go to therapy. There I was recommended mindfulness meditation.
It really helped me a lot to get rid of racing thoughts and finally get some sleep and general peace of mind.
Anything has pros and cons, even if they are not obvious at a first glance. Doesn't mean there is an obscure element to it.
Article does say that the practice can make odious status quo palatable, removing a source of discontent and thus activism.
There are comparisons between the style McD was sold and mindfulness, but nowhere do I see implication that it is some kind of conspiracy.
Article has an ethical dig at neoliberal values at the end, equating them to magical thinking.
Except in the title, for starters. And then in your comment, which is built on the assumption that mindfulness benefits corporations. Your whole argument is a stretch at best, but even if I were to concede that companies benefit from this, it is hardly proof that they would actively invest time, money and effort into playing this incredibly long game through which their gains are, at best, indirect. I think you're looking for a conspiracy theory where there is none.
We can't really know which approach is best, because we can't A/B test human life. Who knows... perhaps if everyone were calm and peaceful, much would change without activism.
Mindfulness does not imply you should not get angry at injustice, for example, but that you might want to observe that emotion arising and understand what you're actually angry about and why before you act. Sometimes you'll catch yourself being manipulated, or you'll realize you're angry about the wrong thing, or lashing out at the wrong person or entity.
As such I think the author would have done much better to focus on why mindfulness is not about inaction, and should not be used as an excuse for inaction. If someone wants to focus only inwards, that's got nothing to do with mindfulness, and in fact if they use mindfulness as an excuse for that, they are failing at being mindful if they're not mindful that it is just an excuse.
Mindfulness certainly can make some people more ready to accept life as it is, but the point then is that suffering for the sake of suffering is pretty irrational - if you can find a way to accept your current situation, then that is good. But accepting it does not mean you can not want to change it. But you should be aware of why, not just blindly fight for something that might not make you or others any happier.
I do think you're right that if everyone were calm and peaceful much would change without activism, but I also don't think mindfulness means no activism. Different activism, perhaps.
Ah, but that's what they want - something to reduce our immediate suffering and distract us with a pleasant fantasy so we can all keep slaving away at those dark satanic mills without question - "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions";-)
But more seriously, I'm not disagreeing with you, and I'm not wholly convinced by the article's argument. It strikes me as like saying antibiotics are bad because they don't encourage good hygiene and can be misused e.g. overuse on farm animals. Well yes those things might be true, but it isn't the antibiotics that are the problem. Its like technology, it in itself isn't good or bad, it is people and what they do with it that makes it one or the other.
How is staying blind to what you're actually thinking good in any way? All it does is make us a reactionary creature, which is exactly what you need to be to burn a whole society to the ground.
Thanks Guardian, this is exactly what we need. More violence, more escalation, more rash decisions. Journalism 2019 - and they ask for your donations.
I see fascism hidden in words like this. The whole motivation seems to be that you must feel rage about anyone and anything which disagrees with your social ideals and any other reaction is unacceptable.
So the author is upset that Kabat-Zinn omitted to name "capitalism" specifically and railing against its evils in a self-help book?
One might as well write an article jumping all over CBT: that by helping patients recognise Automatic Negative Thoughts and breaking the loop, psychologists are conspiring to keep society in the evil grip of capitalism.
This whole thing comes across as a strawman argument.
Acceptance of the present should not mean letting it stay the same forever. It's more "what's done is done". MCBT still has you focus on repeated occasions when you do this, and changing them h this might be by changing yourself but not necessarily the only way you can approach it.
A sane therapist will tell you if the situation you're in is not conducive to therapy.
Acceptance is a tool. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, which is why CBT and MCBT have more tools than mindfulness which is taught in a tiny version of ACT.
I'm not sure how mindfulness could possibly be construed to intend letting things stay the same forever. Impermanence is one of the pillars of Buddhist thought and mindfulness directly addresses it.
For what it is worth, The Guardian’s “the long read” section has the following in the subtitle, “The long read In-depth reporting, essays and profiles“ [0]. I think they could stand to add a bit more guidance / messaging to indicate that this piece is separate from their reporting without harming their brand or appearing to insinuate some position over another.
People seem to really be addicted to this emotionally driven autopilot existence and seem over and over to insist that if you aren't being driven by emotion you're incapable of doing good. It seems to be the next wave of the attempt to reject the – what I would call – first order rationalism which builds its understanding of the world out of what easily fits into straightforward models and rejects or handwaves the existence of everything else.
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Anything remotely beneficial (any many things that aren't) will have a whole herd of self-help industrialists trying to sell it to you, they're better off ignored. Their presence really has no signal as to the legitimacy to what they're selling.
The example that I would give is how someone might view homelessness in San Francisco, the first time, the next few times, and then subsequent n times.
The first time a person can truly be utter shock. The next few times might remain uncomfortable, but less of a shock. In the subsequent n times, this person might stop seeing homelessness altogether except for the more gratuitous moments.
I am refining my thoughts here, and the part I see at issue is not mindfulness as a whole, but its partial or selective application. The author’s point is that the parts of mindfulness industry and parts of the economy as a whole benefit from the spread and application of the self-regulation/desensitization of mindfulness and it is in their interest to stop any sort of follow through action that would disrupt the status quo.
By stopping mindfulness at self-regulation and not following through with action, an outside observer would be hard pressed to find the difference between someone practicing this much mindfulness and someone who is just apathetic. I think this is where the calls to emotion that the author makes, and my use of the word “numb” comes in: it is question posed by someone else asking, “Do you not care?” In this way, I think the author is trying to argue that some of parts of this mindfulness industry is effectively selling mass-produced apathy and mass-produced self-regulation/compliance. To take this even farther, I think it would be possible to argue that this combination of desensitization and no-follow-through is basically learned helplessness [0].
To be completely honest with you, after writing all this out, I think the author could have made this point more clear.
Mindfulness and learned helplessness are diametric opposites.
I'd say the article is claiming one is "less likely", not incapable.
> they're better off ignored.
So you advocate inaction? Seems like the author may have a point :)
My bystander observation is they're all developing memory problems. Obviously mentally replaying and analyzing memories strenghtens retention and these people avoid doing it. It's idiotic.
When I meditate, my impression is not that I avoid or push away thoughts. Rather, it's as if I observe them from a distance, and inspect them, smell them, turn them over, etc.
In many cases, true, these thoughts sort of dissolve of 'disappear'. But in other cases they merely change a bit in quality, or they remain with some context added.
Generally speaking it's not so much about avoiding, replaying, or analyzing memories (and strengthening retention), as it is about developing and practicing discernment as to what thoughts are worth replaying, analyzing or avoiding.
For a more meaningful discussion of mindfulness, I recommend the "Mind The Mindfulness Hype" episode of The Psychology Podcast [1] . They dig into what the scientific method has to say to mindfulness, what studies have been made and what is missing, and what benefits can be realistically expected. And what's over the top hype.
[1] https://www.scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/mind-the-mindfulne...
I personally find that a 'deterministic' view of life achieves that for me.
For whatever reason when I meditate I can only leverage it as a relaxation tool, as opposed to witnessing my thoughts occur, which I think is somewhat 'mindfulness'.
The best example I've experienced was being in an argument with my wife about something or other that had gotten heated to the point I was getting angry. But then I got a phone call from someone at one of my clients - I immediately had to be a different person for that call. Once it had finished I came back to my wife and felt like I entirely had the _choice_ as to whether I would be angry again. I was, in fact, almost certainly treading an automatic path down which I _would have_ made myself angry to continue from where we were. Instead, the obviousness of this was so apparent that I didn't - because it suddenly felt artificial.
> 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.
Every interaction I've had with mindfulness so far hasn't been that it was "sold", it was just simply offered. It's not an organized religion or ideology, from what I've seen there doesn't appear to be a hidden agenda. I've personally found it quite interesting to reflect on the subject of mindfulness and my (current) conclusions I have regarding how to live my life - there's a lot of overlap.
It's not something that exists to "help us cope with the ravages of capitalism". Political ideology aside, it's simply there to help you think and act more freely by understanding your thinking and acting. My friend who studies mindfulness says (para-quoting): "it's about understanding your actions and why you take them, it's about separating yourself from your immediate reality". I think most people could potentially benefit from such an idea. In general I believe people should take more time to "do nothing" and reflect.
As for being "the enemy of activism", if clear thinking is the enemy of activism, I think this says more about the current state of activism than it does about mindfulness. In general, I believe we shouldn't be striving to produce a society who dedicate their lives to activism. It's perfectly okay to be an activist, but there has to be more - life is short after all.
In defense of the author, it isn't really hard to come to the conlusion that mindfulness is mostly an attempt to sell stuff: Open the search engine of your choice, type in "mindfulness" and look at the results. Look at any pop-psychology, lifestyle or fashion magazine, and be greeted with advertorials for "calm" or similar apps.
It seems to me that the author favors radical change, either in general or he assumes everybody knows what exactly must be changed and how. Which I doubt.
"Capitalism" has spared the Western world increasingly more suffering, so there is no point in "going back" anywhere.
While I do favor corrections in terms of wealth distribution, I'd be hesitant to implement any unproven radical changes.
I fail to see why mindfulness meditation is any obstacle to this.
"Spared" implies that there's a clearly worse and inevitable alternative. Unless we shake off this ingrained cold-war mentality no other alternatives than status-quo will seem plausible.
You're talking about alternatives to the status-quo. Sure, there's lots to be improved, that's not what the disagreement is. The disagreement is whether to have a calm conversations and plan for a better future, or - like the Guardian suggests - burning it all to the ground because capitalism = bad.
No one, and neither do I. That's why I added inevitable. Because the problem is the false dichotomy of Capitalism or Stalinism. It's obvious that the people calling for radical change are not even close to supporting Stalinism. But for some reason this is always assumed when just criticism towards Capitalism is presented.
> The disagreement is whether to have a calm conversations and plan for a better future
Moderates never ever find a "good" time for true change. It should always be delayed and slowed down until it eventually evaporates.
Anyone who actually knows what mindfulness is can immediately see that they're building the biggest strawman ever with the sole purpose of forcing anti capitalist agenda down our throats.
Remember this: It used to be that news were facts and you formulated an opinion on them. Now the news is opinion and you're trying to figure out what the facts were.
From the opening line this seems to be coming across as little more than a virtue signalling piece for anti-Capitalists, and progresses into tired old tropes about Western consumerism.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...)
"Đức calmly sat down in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. A colleague emptied the contents of the petrol container over Đức's head. Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words Nam mô A Di Đà Phật ("Homage to Amitābha Buddha") before striking a match and dropping it on himself."
"Photographs of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm government. John F. Kennedy said in reference to a photograph of Đức on fire, "No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.""
By stripping ethics from it you would stop all its activism.
We cannot just ask Siddhartha Gautama anymore about the practices and his words were mysticized and changed over generations, as were ethical rules and especially the added monastic rules.
Even Pali Canon is suspect in pieces and that's a more reliable source in the practices he reformed.
Here is a good starting point for understanding what is: http://ftp.budaedu.org/ebooks/pdf/EN074.pdf
It is.
The story of Shakyamuni Buddha achieving enlightenment after 49 days of meditation under the Bodhi tree is pretty well known. There, of course, are a lot more antecedents to contemporary Buddhist thought and ethics than that one incident, but it's fair to say it's a pretty core part of the historical tradition, and precedes essentially everything that came after.
For context in this discussion, I am a practicing Zen Buddhist.
Meditation is for going beyond all that.
> I am a practicing Zen Buddhist
Who?
I'll stick with the Rosary thanks.
One part of mindfulness meditation is deliberate practice at directed focus, and that practice improves your ability to think about what you want to think about rather than what your mind wanders to. There's another common practice where you actually intentionally practice allowing your mind to wander, and consciously choose to dismiss those thoughts.
I see mindfulness meditation as orthogonal to actual prayer, a little axe-sharpening that improves not only my prayer life but my general thought processes as well. If I only have time for one and not the other, obviously prayer is more important.
[0] For people who don't know, the Rosary is a series of meditations on different aspects of the lives of Jesus and Mary and the ministry of Jesus, in the form of an easily-memorized sequence of rote prayers. The rote nature of the prayers allows the person saying the rosary to use the brain's fuzzy focus to think about each aspect in turn. In total it consists of the Apostle's Creed, 6 "Our Father"s, 53 "Hail Mary"s, 6 "Glory Be"s, and one "Hail Holy Queen", taking between 10 minutes (if you're in a rush) and 20 minutes (if you're sleepy).
There's a huge difference that you have to experience with practice in order to begin to appreciate. Learning how to get out of your typical all-consuming "thought loops" is a skill worth having and cultivating.