Hacker News Reader

This aspect of loss of ego, extinction before subsumption of the remaining space by the superego, is precisely what has made certain types of Buddhism palatable to Western capitalism. It is not inimical to the Protestant work ethic, it is not inimical to the transient demands of leaders, it is not broken by the suffering of every day life.

The perfect soldier, citizen, human, is a faceless, egoless pupil.

View on HN

Of course a superficial read of a philosophy/attitude/religion which might say something like “turn the other cheek” (basically), and “do the best with what you’ve got”, and “pain is certain but suffering is optional” will be “compatible” (not incompatible) with being a worker bee/soldier. But really: what does one thing have to do with the other? I think meditation retreats have enough on their plate with the human mind, so doing an introduction to Marxism might be too distracting.

With enough propagandistic scholars I’m sure any religion could become pro-capitalist, pro-Japanese, pro-socialist, or what have you. Because we’ve certainly seen some insane religious justifications throughout history.

But “corporate mindfulness” seems to mostly be about mind training. It’s not about submitting to the boss per se (other things are used to instill that attitude). And if Buddhism then is reduced to just that (better resilience through mindfulness meditation), then I don’t really get the complaint? Because it seems like complaining that a workplace offering free gym membership is corrupting the human activities of cardio and weight training in order to make more efficient worker bees/soldiers. And while that’s what the workplace wants, for sure, it’s not like the employee won’t also get some benefits from doing regular weight training and cardio.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com