Thank you for replying 'colechristensen.
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.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness