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The mindfulness conspiracy

theguardian.com

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Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#41

Post by ptah »

AstralStorm wrote: post #39
ptah wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree, mindfulness can help one come up with even more radical actions. It can be a tool for activists to cope with the pressures of activism. It doesn't sound like the author has done any mindfulness practice

Does it though? Do we have any kind of data about it? 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?

You are adding the goal of turning status quo warriors into activists. Mindfulness is not designed for that and has never claimed to do that

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#42

Post by AstralStorm »

kranner wrote: post #11

> Other sources of cultural malaise are not discussed. The only mention of the word “capitalist” in Kabat-Zinn’s book Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness occurs in an anecdote about a stressed investor who says: “We all suffer a kind of ADD.” So the author is upset that Kabat-Zinn omitted to name "capitalism" specifically and railing against its evils in a self-help book? One mig…

CBT and MCBT (which uses mindfulness), has control and "being able to progress" as the goal, not just changing emotional state consciously, which the pure mindfulness as taught can devolve into. (A crutch instead of a fix.)

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#44

Post by wnkrshm »

Depression can be created by a hostile environment in individuals with no prior issues.

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#46

Post by bArray »

pjc50 wrote: post #36
bArray wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There we go. The authors biased and naive opinion of > 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.

This is the "lifeandstyle" section, as per the URL.

"Life and style" can still be factual reporting (i.e. interviews, presenting multiple opinions, etc). This is very clearly an opinion piece and should be labelled as such, the author is injecting themselves into their writing.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#47

Post by jahaja »

kaolti wrote: post #33
jahaja wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Capitalism" has spared the Western world increasingly more suffering "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.

Who is disputing that there are clearly worse alternatives? Pick almost any part of history. 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.

> Who is disputing that there are clearly worse alternatives?

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#48

Post by hkeide »

collyw wrote: post #9

The bias clearly show through in the writing. "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...

Thank you for pointing out the bias and the advertising aspect of this article. I just cancelled my Guardian subscription.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#49

Post by bArray »

AstralStorm wrote: post #37
bArray wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There we go. The authors biased and naive opinion of > 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.

There are a scarce few facts in there, about origins of the commercial training practice and size of the market, as well as a few companies that benefit from it. That's about it. 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.

> Opinion pieces, no matter how biased and disagreeable, are

> still necessary.

I don't disagree, I just believe they should be very clearly labelled as such.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#50

Post by tmpfs »

It should be pointed out that mindfulness is one of many practices in various esoteric belief systems (typically with a view to complete self-realization) and when taken out of context and practiced alone it can have benefits (depending upon the individual) but is much more powerful when combined with all the practices of a belief system (Buddhism, Taoism, Bon etc).
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