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The mindfulness conspiracy

theguardian.com

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Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#61

Post by marcus_holmes »

wnkrshm wrote: post #44

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…

I would agree, or at least acknowledge that there was some truth here, if the worker's revolutions that have happened actually made anyone happier or less stressed.

The only thing I've seen in all my travels that made anyone any happier is strong family ties.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#62

Post by bildung »

bArray wrote: post #38

Just the first statement says alot about the writer: > 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 hidde…

> Every interaction I've had with mindfulness so far hasn't been that it was "sold"

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#63

Post by Rexxar »

hkeide wrote: post #48
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.

Why is it a problem here ? It's clearly indicated at the end and I see books as a natural complement to newspapers. I generally dislike advertisement but this seems to be one of the rare legitimate case.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#64

Post by toxicFork »

tmoravec wrote: post #2

The article literally starts with this: "It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism..." 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. A…

Thank you for this link, the episode shows very well what is the state of scientific research on mindfulness and meditation, and gets us more curious about the mind itself.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#65

Post by lackoftactics »

his arguments doesn't make sense. Using this way of thinking psychoteraphy is bad, because you are not fighting the system that damaged you. Of course he is using Zizek as authority and he treats his word of gospel, I think he lacks critical thinking that he advocates

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#66

Post by hkeide »

me_me_me wrote: post #54
hkeide wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Out of curiosity who else do you subscribe to? 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).

Only financial newspapers, Bloomberg, WSJ and the like. I like The Atlantic, but don't subscribe. I wish I could subscribe to a collection of them, since it gets expensive.

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#67

Post by hkeide »

Rexxar wrote: post #63
hkeide wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why is it a problem here ? It's clearly indicated at the end and I see books as a natural complement to newspapers. I generally dislike advertisement but this seems to be one of the rare legitimate case.

I honestly don't know exactly why it rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe because he's railing against capitalism (I can't even count the number of assertions in the article, and very little explanation or evidence is offered) and then procedes to try to sell his book based on what I personally think is a shallow understanding of the subject matter.

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#68

Post by bencollier49 »

golergka wrote: post #43
bencollier49 wrote: post #40

This is an interesting reversion to form for the Guardian. Religion as the opiate of the masses is straight from Marx.

As if it hasn't long time ago.

Oh, of course. But this one is particular is a classic Marxist trope, it's interesting to see it popping its head up in a new context.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#69

Post by _nosaj »

bArray wrote: post #25
Mo3 wrote: post #17

There we go. The authors biased and naive opinion of mindfulness is just that. His opinion. Without any awareness of itself. 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" an…

> 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.

If The Gardian stops telling people what they want to hear today, they'll have fewer paid members tomorrow.

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.

Re: The mindfulness conspiracy

#70

Post by dev_north_east »

philsnow wrote: post #22
dev_north_east wrote: post #15

From an outsider's perspective, it just seems like a way to replicate daily prayers. I'll stick with the Rosary thanks.

The rosary is great for contemplative prayer [0], but does your mind ever wander from what you 'should' be thinking about to various mundane things (last weekend's sporting events, your car needs an oil change, what to make for dinner)? 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…

Many thanks, very interesting reading
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