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On this episode you’ll hear a recording of an online lecture by Andrew Archer. The topic is “mindfulness”: as a state of mind, as a principle, and as a social movement. The commodification of an individualized form of mindfulness promises to relieve stress, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, alleviate GI difficulties, improve mental health and self-control with enhanced flexibility, equanimity, and improved concentration as well as emotional intelligence. The self-focused list of individualized benefits goes on and on. However, Ron Purser’s book, McMindfulness, sheds light on what happens when a contemplative practice is stripped of its ethical origins, i.e., the Buddhist Eightfold Path. Divorced from its historic and cultural roots, secular mindfulness has become a capitalist spirituality for social control, i.e., maintenance of the political-economic status quo, via self-tracking and ultimately self-pacification. Just breathe and don’t judge as the world burns.
References:
Purser, R.E. (2019). McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality. Repeater Books: United Kingdom.
Visit MankatoTherapist.com for more information and to contact Andrew Archer.