Ronald Purser is a Professor of Management at San Francisco State University. His essays and cultural criticism have appeared in the Huffington Post, Salon, Alternet and Tricycle magazine.
Meer over Ronald PurserMindfulness is now all the rage. From celebrity endorsements to monks, neuroscientists and meditation coaches rubbing shoulders with CEOs at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it is clear that mindfulness has gone mainstream. Some have even called it a revolution.
But what if, instead of changing the world, mindfulness has become a banal form of capitalist spirituality that mindlessly avoids social and political transformation, reinforcing the neoliberal status quo? In 'McMindfulness', Ronald Purser debunks the so-called "mindfulness revolution," exposing how corporations, schools, governments and the military have coopted it as a technique for social control andself-pacification.
A lively and razor-sharp critique, Purser busts the myths its salesmen rely on, challenging the narrative that stress is self-imposed and mindfulness is the cure-all. If we are to harness the truly revolutionary potential of mindfulness, we have to cast off its neoliberal shackles, liberating mindfulness for a collective awakening.
