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2023/07/05
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life - Big Think
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life - Big Think
HEALTH — JULY 8, 2019
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life
In Natural Causes, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich questions our obsession with wellness.
Photo by Darren Gerrish/WireImage
Twiggy (R) and Gwyneth Paltrow on stage at In goop Health London 2019 on June 29, 2019 in London, England.
KEY TAKEAWAYSJournalist Barbara Ehrenreich writes that a for-profit medical system needs healthy patients — hence, the demand for yearly examinations and constant screenings.
Certain human cells are not in favor of our continued existence, making the concept of "wholeness" questionable.
Ehrenreich concludes that the market for wellness is more a function of capitalism than health.
Derek Beres
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Fans of the “lifestyle” website Goop were recently disappointed by the company’s U.K. wellness summit. Apparently, the $5,700 entry price did not match the hype. Instead of offering credible post-summit customer service to deal with the blowback, Goop’s representative claims the “true value” of the summit was more than $8,000.
In other words, Goopies should be grateful for the bargain.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s oft-criticized company is an easy target. Day after day, the website churns out sciencey articles — that is, posts that state “science says” without any actual science behind the pushed claims. The replication problem in clinical trials is well known: results from one study are not repeatable. Yet companies such as Goop in particular, and the wellness industry as a whole, tend to find small sample sizes with questionable results and run with it.
Whether marketing the hottest “ancient healing herb” or pimping nootropics for brain optimization, the underlying catalyst for the multi-billion dollar wellness market is truly ancient: the fear of death. That much was true when Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer for making such a claim in 1973, and it is equally true when Barbara Ehrenreich published Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, The Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer last year.
Ehrenreich wears her muckraking badge proudly. The author of 21 books, she wrote about living on minimum wage in the service industry in her 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed. For Natural Causes, she puts her Ph.D. in cell biology to use by exposing the façade the wellness industry uses to rake in massive profits.
Having successfully battled breast cancer, Ehrenreich notes that she’s sworn off annual physical exams and the battery of tests that go along with it. At 77, she’s just about reached the average life expectancy of American women. She’s ready to die when her time comes and has no further plans on extending her time here. Her contention isn’t with medicine, but the profit-making nature of its purveyors:
Top Stories00:1401:00
5 brilliant books told in thesecond-person perspective
“How is a doctor — or hospital or drug company — to make money from essentially healthy patients? By subjecting them to tests and examinations that, in sufficient quantity, are bound to detect something wrong or at least worthy of follow-up.”
‘I am old enough to die’: Barbara Ehrenreich questions our longevity obsession
www.youtube.com
‘I AM OLD ENOUGH TO DIE’: BARBARA EHRENREICH QUESTIONS OUR LONGEVITY OBSESSION
The small percentage of early detection successes does is not worth the massive costs of unnecessary tests, many of which lead to treatments that do more harm than good. Despite the seemingly good intentions of regular PSA screenings, she writes that there has been no overall decrease in mortality since that public health campaign began in the late ’80s.
What’s worse, the radiation and hormonal therapies attached to over-diagnosis leads to actual problems, such as cardiovascular disease and incontinence. A similar problem occurs with colonoscopies: at a cost of up to $10,000, they’ve been found no more effective at detecting cancerous polyps than the examination of feces for traces of blood.
Health care costs Americans $3.4 trillion. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent in the last days and weeks of a patient’s life in what proves to be a futile attempt. Here Ehrenreich’s academic training shines. While the wellness industrial complex seeks out means for lengthening telomeres, she focuses on an overlooked cell: macrophages, “cheerleaders on the side of death.”
The focus of modern wellness is holism; Ehrenreich considers our bodies differently. We’re not a single system but rather a number of confederations, some of which want to wrest control from others. Cancer cells (as Siddhartha Mukherjee has so eloquently written) are not foreign invaders; they’re an inherent part of our biology. Should we not try to stop their incessant growth? Of course not. We need to understand them for what they are, however.
Ehrenreich spends chapters explaining the (sometimes) murderous plight of macrophages. They play life-threatening and -ending roles in many inflammatory processes, including cancer, as well as acne and arthritis, all well beyond the fold of conscious control. She even goes as far as to note that these cells have agency:
“Second by second, both the individual cell and the conglomeration of cells we call a ‘human’ are doing the same thing: processing incoming data and making decisions.”
Writer and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich on November 27, 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where she was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2018. Photo credit: Patrick van Katwijk / WireImage
Every day, this body that I usually consider a unified “I” is really a battleground for competing forces. Humans assign agency to inanimate forces; we offer it freely to other species. At a cellular level, however, there is an agency we are not aware of. Instead of fighting it, understand it. Ehrenreich suggests the cultivation of an important quality to aid in this quest: humility.
“For all of our vaunted intelligence and ‘complexity,’ we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else. You may exercise diligently, eat a medically fashionable diet, and still die of a sting from an irritated bee. You may be a slim, toned paragon of wellness, and still a macrophage within your body may decide to throw in its lot with an incipient tumor.”
Subscribe for counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday
Fields marked with an * are required
Ehrenreich does not criticize staying healthy. She discusses her own struggles and triumphs with gym culture; even still, she exercises regularly. Her problem is treating the human body as a clumsy burden to be overcome; equally, as an infinitely wise biological organism primed for optimization. Many of our cells — what “I” is composed of — have no interest in sustaining our lives. A number of them even bet on and actively instigate our destruction.
Beyond her stretching regimen and time on exercise machines, Ehrenreich writes, “I pretty much eat what I want and indulge my vices, from butter to wine. Life is too short to forgo these pleasures, and would be far too long without them.”
Personally, I’m on team Grace Jones, who, until last month, was Britain’s oldest woman. Shortly before passing at 112, she revealed the true secret of longevity: a nightly shot of whiskey. Futurists can swallow copious amounts of resveratrol while their acolytes chug Soylent for optimal. . . indigestion? I’ll place my bets on something a bit more ancient, like fermented grain mash.
Leaders in the wellness industry thrive at the top of Maslow’s pyramid while their acolytes sell questionable goods down the steep divide. Those at the bottom shrug their shoulders at the scent of privilege. Culturally, we do need to spend more time engaging in healthier behaviors. We just have to educate ourselves to better understand the parameters. That begins, as Ehrenreich concludes, with redefining the place we are all assured to end up:
“You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us.”
—
Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook.
HEALTH — JULY 8, 2019
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life
In Natural Causes, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich questions our obsession with wellness.
Photo by Darren Gerrish/WireImage
Twiggy (R) and Gwyneth Paltrow on stage at In goop Health London 2019 on June 29, 2019 in London, England.
KEY TAKEAWAYSJournalist Barbara Ehrenreich writes that a for-profit medical system needs healthy patients — hence, the demand for yearly examinations and constant screenings.
Certain human cells are not in favor of our continued existence, making the concept of "wholeness" questionable.
Ehrenreich concludes that the market for wellness is more a function of capitalism than health.
Derek Beres
Copy a link to the article entitled http://The%20market%20for%20wellness%20is%20more%20about%20capitalism%20than%20prolonging%20life
Share The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life on Facebook
Share The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life on Twitter
Share The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life on LinkedIn
Fans of the “lifestyle” website Goop were recently disappointed by the company’s U.K. wellness summit. Apparently, the $5,700 entry price did not match the hype. Instead of offering credible post-summit customer service to deal with the blowback, Goop’s representative claims the “true value” of the summit was more than $8,000.
In other words, Goopies should be grateful for the bargain.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s oft-criticized company is an easy target. Day after day, the website churns out sciencey articles — that is, posts that state “science says” without any actual science behind the pushed claims. The replication problem in clinical trials is well known: results from one study are not repeatable. Yet companies such as Goop in particular, and the wellness industry as a whole, tend to find small sample sizes with questionable results and run with it.
Whether marketing the hottest “ancient healing herb” or pimping nootropics for brain optimization, the underlying catalyst for the multi-billion dollar wellness market is truly ancient: the fear of death. That much was true when Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer for making such a claim in 1973, and it is equally true when Barbara Ehrenreich published Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, The Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer last year.
Ehrenreich wears her muckraking badge proudly. The author of 21 books, she wrote about living on minimum wage in the service industry in her 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed. For Natural Causes, she puts her Ph.D. in cell biology to use by exposing the façade the wellness industry uses to rake in massive profits.
Having successfully battled breast cancer, Ehrenreich notes that she’s sworn off annual physical exams and the battery of tests that go along with it. At 77, she’s just about reached the average life expectancy of American women. She’s ready to die when her time comes and has no further plans on extending her time here. Her contention isn’t with medicine, but the profit-making nature of its purveyors:
Top Stories00:1401:005 brilliant books told in thesecond-person perspective“How is a doctor — or hospital or drug company — to make money from essentially healthy patients? By subjecting them to tests and examinations that, in sufficient quantity, are bound to detect something wrong or at least worthy of follow-up.”
‘I am old enough to die’: Barbara Ehrenreich questions our longevity obsession
www.youtube.com
‘I AM OLD ENOUGH TO DIE’: BARBARA EHRENREICH QUESTIONS OUR LONGEVITY OBSESSION
The small percentage of early detection successes does is not worth the massive costs of unnecessary tests, many of which lead to treatments that do more harm than good. Despite the seemingly good intentions of regular PSA screenings, she writes that there has been no overall decrease in mortality since that public health campaign began in the late ’80s.
What’s worse, the radiation and hormonal therapies attached to over-diagnosis leads to actual problems, such as cardiovascular disease and incontinence. A similar problem occurs with colonoscopies: at a cost of up to $10,000, they’ve been found no more effective at detecting cancerous polyps than the examination of feces for traces of blood.
Health care costs Americans $3.4 trillion. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent in the last days and weeks of a patient’s life in what proves to be a futile attempt. Here Ehrenreich’s academic training shines. While the wellness industrial complex seeks out means for lengthening telomeres, she focuses on an overlooked cell: macrophages, “cheerleaders on the side of death.”
The focus of modern wellness is holism; Ehrenreich considers our bodies differently. We’re not a single system but rather a number of confederations, some of which want to wrest control from others. Cancer cells (as Siddhartha Mukherjee has so eloquently written) are not foreign invaders; they’re an inherent part of our biology. Should we not try to stop their incessant growth? Of course not. We need to understand them for what they are, however.
Ehrenreich spends chapters explaining the (sometimes) murderous plight of macrophages. They play life-threatening and -ending roles in many inflammatory processes, including cancer, as well as acne and arthritis, all well beyond the fold of conscious control. She even goes as far as to note that these cells have agency:
“Second by second, both the individual cell and the conglomeration of cells we call a ‘human’ are doing the same thing: processing incoming data and making decisions.”
Writer and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich on November 27, 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where she was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2018. Photo credit: Patrick van Katwijk / WireImage
Every day, this body that I usually consider a unified “I” is really a battleground for competing forces. Humans assign agency to inanimate forces; we offer it freely to other species. At a cellular level, however, there is an agency we are not aware of. Instead of fighting it, understand it. Ehrenreich suggests the cultivation of an important quality to aid in this quest: humility.
“For all of our vaunted intelligence and ‘complexity,’ we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else. You may exercise diligently, eat a medically fashionable diet, and still die of a sting from an irritated bee. You may be a slim, toned paragon of wellness, and still a macrophage within your body may decide to throw in its lot with an incipient tumor.”
Subscribe for counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday
Fields marked with an * are required
Ehrenreich does not criticize staying healthy. She discusses her own struggles and triumphs with gym culture; even still, she exercises regularly. Her problem is treating the human body as a clumsy burden to be overcome; equally, as an infinitely wise biological organism primed for optimization. Many of our cells — what “I” is composed of — have no interest in sustaining our lives. A number of them even bet on and actively instigate our destruction.
Beyond her stretching regimen and time on exercise machines, Ehrenreich writes, “I pretty much eat what I want and indulge my vices, from butter to wine. Life is too short to forgo these pleasures, and would be far too long without them.”
Personally, I’m on team Grace Jones, who, until last month, was Britain’s oldest woman. Shortly before passing at 112, she revealed the true secret of longevity: a nightly shot of whiskey. Futurists can swallow copious amounts of resveratrol while their acolytes chug Soylent for optimal. . . indigestion? I’ll place my bets on something a bit more ancient, like fermented grain mash.
Leaders in the wellness industry thrive at the top of Maslow’s pyramid while their acolytes sell questionable goods down the steep divide. Those at the bottom shrug their shoulders at the scent of privilege. Culturally, we do need to spend more time engaging in healthier behaviors. We just have to educate ourselves to better understand the parameters. That begins, as Ehrenreich concludes, with redefining the place we are all assured to end up:
“You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us.”
—
Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook.
** Barbara on Living With a Wild God at Miami Book Fair
Barbara Ehrenreich on Living With a Wild God at Miami Book Fair
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2,844 views Dec 8, 2014Rich Fahle interviews author Barbara Ehrenriech about her book, Living With a Wild God: An Unbeliever’s Search for the Truth About Everything at Miami Book Fair International 2014. Watch more interviews at
• Book View Now: Mi... FROM THE PUBLISHER: From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world. Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find ""the Truth"" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a ""mystical experience""-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering. In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.Key moments
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Living with a Wild God
0:02
A Moving Passage in the Book
1:35
Steps toward Finding the Truth
5:44
The Event at Lone Pine
7:15
I'M Not Tidy Enough
13:37
A History of Women Healers
14:18
This Is a Very Personal Book
14:59
Barbara Ehrenreich for Open Source : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Barbara Ehrenreich for Open Source : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
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Christopher Lydon - Wikipedia
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Christopher Lydon (born 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American media personality and author. He was the original host of The Connection, ...
Open Source with Christopher Lydon | Christopher Lydon in ...
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https://radioopensource.org
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Open Source with Christopher Lydon ... history: Eileen Myles grew up in Boston/Cambridge and moved to New York in 1974 to become a poet. Chris with Eileen .
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Barbara Ehrenreich for Open Source
Topics podcast, health care, politics
Barbara Ehrenreich in conversation with Christopher Lydon
on her book Natural Causes. April 2018.
Christopher Lydon - Wikipedia
wikipedia.org
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › C...
·이 페이지 번역하기
Christopher Lydon (born 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American media personality and author. He was the original host of The Connection, ...
Open Source with Christopher Lydon | Christopher Lydon in ...
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https://radioopensource.org
·이 페이지 번역하기
Open Source with Christopher Lydon ... history: Eileen Myles grew up in Boston/Cambridge and moved to New York in 1974 to become a poet. Chris with Eileen .
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Mindfulness in Silicon Valley | Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School
Mindfulness in Silicon Valley | Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School
Mindfulness in Silicon Valley
BUDDHISM CASE STUDY – TECHNOLOGY | 2019
Soren Gordhamer, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Jon Kabat-Zinn on a panel at Wisdom 2.0 in 2011. Photo by elizaIO via Flickr Creative Commons: https://bit.ly/2F8wkhk
PDF CASE FILE
DOWNLOAD CASE
NOTE ON THIS CASE STUDY
New technologies present both opportunities and challenges to religious communities. Throughout history, many religious people have created and used new technologies on behalf of their religious traditions. At times, religious needs have driven technological innovation. Yet many religious people have also tried to limit the use of certain technologies that they felt violated principles of their tradition. The relationship between religion and technology is complex and highly dependent on context. As you read these case studies, pay attention to that context: Who are the groups involved? What else is happening in their context? Who benefits from new technologies? Who get to decide if they are legitimate or not?
As always, when thinking about religion and technology, maintain a focus on how religion is internally diverse, always evolving and changing, and always embedded in specific cultures.
Silicon Valley, a region of central California, is a major economic center and home to many companies that specialize in technology like the internet, computers, social media, and more.
Over the last decade, many of these companies have heavily invested in trainings in “mindfulness,” which is the English name for a diverse set of Buddhist religious practices that have a history going back thousands of years. In particular, the forms of mindfulness promoted by these companies are influenced by 20th century Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar and Zen Buddhists in Korea. Because of Silicon Valley’s economic, political, and social power, this approach to mindfulness has spread rapidly. The mindfulness industry is now worth over $1 billion in the US, and corporations like Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, and Aetna have joined Silicon Valley in offering mindfulness training. Some estimate that 20% of US companies now teach mindfulness, and many of them fund mindfulness training in public schools. Even the US military has used mindfulness to calm soldiers before they are sent into combat.
In Silicon Valley, major companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter have adopted mindfulness practices. Companies have claimed meditation is a “technology,” and they market this technology to tech-savvy consumers under trendy names. Jon Kabat-Zinn offers “mindfulness-based stress reduction,” Kenneth Folk promotes “open-source enlightement,” Google talks about “neural self-hacking,” and Soren Gordhamer developed “Wisdom 2.0.” In 2010, Gordhamer started an annual event to discuss mindfulness in tech companies, also called Wisdom 2.0, which has drawn thousands of high-powered CEOs and tech workers. In 2011, Google invited celebrated Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to Google’s headquarters to lead mindfulness practice. Many companies claim mindfulness trainings have reduced employee stress and increased productivity and profits. However, studies with control groups are inconclusive in proving these claimed benefits.
While many trainers in Silicon Valley acknowledge that mindfulness is a Buddhist practice, they also claim to remove religion from it. They often characterize their programs “Buddhist-inspired,” making the connection to Buddhism while reassuring their largely non-religious audience that they are not promoting religion. For example, Kenneth Folk described Wisdom 2.0 as “a networking opportunity with a light dressing of Buddhism.” Some question if corporate mindfulness is Buddhist at all; companies usually claim that these trainings are “secular,” even when they bring in well-known Buddhist leaders for trainings. However, some Buddhists claim that “secular” mindfulness is “stealth Buddhism,” which allows Buddhism to be exported to businesses, schools, and hospitals without accusations of proselytizing.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who gave a keynote address to Google employees in 2011. Photo by Duc Truong in 2006 via Wikimedia Commons: https://bit.ly/2F4hqZt
Despite support from some prominent Buddhists, other Buddhists are concerned by the proliferation of these mindfulness practices. At the 2014 Wisdom 2.0 conference, Buddhist practitioner Amanda Ream and other members of a local meditation center protested the event. They called attention to the hypocrisy of the nation’s richest CEOs discussing an escape from suffering for themselves while they were causing suffering for poorer Americans through gentrification in central California. Security removed the protestors without their concerns being addressed. Ream later wrote that true dharma “directs us to feel the suffering of others.”
Ream’s protest was one example of some Buddhists’ concerns about mindfulness in the tech world. Several prominent Buddhists have accused companies of promoting “McMindfulness,” meaning the values of neoliberalism instead of Buddhism’s call to end suffering. Neoliberalism is a dominant economic philosophy in modern American industry that promotes profit-driven, free market capitalism in which workers are responsible for their own well-being. From this perspective, individuals can “choose” between being stressed and sad or being happy and healthy. McMindfulness enables this view by offering a technology workers can ostensibly use to choose health and happiness. However, Buddhist critics claim that this use of mindfulness only shifts the blame for stress onto the employees and discourages them from questioning stressful working conditions. Plus, Buddhist critics note, Silicon Valley profits from mindfulness as a solution to problems it is partially responsible for creating. These Buddhists worry that Silicon Valley is funding McMindfulness because it teaches workers to be “unquestioning consumers” and “compliant” workers. Buddhist monk Bhikku Bodhi noted, “Absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stablize… consumer capitalism.” In his view, mindfulness has become a “handy buzzword” to sell products.
With billions of dollars in funding from Silicon Valley and American consumers, mindfulness has impacted Buddhism worldwide. Historically, many Asian Buddhists have focused on ending suffering, destroying the self, and escaping from samsara, but American Buddhists have increasingly focused on mindfulness for personal, inner healing rather than future liberation. Asian Buddhists have begun to similarly emphasize mindfulness in new ways, reflecting the growth of Buddhism in the West and transforming the tradition as it encounters new cultures.
Buddhism Case Study – Technology 2019
Additional Resources
Primary Sources:
• Google video on well-known Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s visit to their corporate headquarters in 2011: https://bit.ly/1yKInY1.
• CNBC video of Google’s chief mindfulness expert teaching corporate mindfulness on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (2013): https://cnb.cx/2VG9yT0
• Huffington Post article by company founder Arianna Huffington on the money to be made from promoting mindfulness (2013): https://bit.ly/2RaKUeH
• Editorial by Zen Buddhist teacher David Loy on the dangers of “McMindfulness” (2013): https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO
• Amanda Ream on disrupting Wisdom 2.0 (2014): https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
• Editorial by journalist Kevin Williamson critical of corporate mindfulness (2018): https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G
• Editorial by Buddhist scholars Ronald Purser and Edwin Ng critical of corporate mindfulness (2015): https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ
Secondary Sources:
• RLP video explaining the concept of neoliberalism (2018): https://bit.ly/2TuwYZx
• NPR radio program on Wisdom 2.0 and the 2014 protests: https://n.pr/2GVF4Jj
• Wired article on the importance of mindfulness to Silicon Valley CEOs and employees (2013): https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek
Discussion Questions
• Why might Buddhists have such diverse views on the spread of mindfulness in corporations?
• What is neoliberalism? Why do some Buddhists see corporate mindfulness as a neoliberal tool?
• Why might corporate mindfulness trainers continue to teach the Buddhist origins of their trainings, while still claiming to be “secular”?
• Is corporate mindfulness Buddhist? Who gets to decide what is Buddhist and what is not?
• Watch the CNBC video of a corporate mindfulness training. How might you imagine different Buddhists would responds to this video? What about their cultural context might cause them to respond differently?
• Compare the two Huffington Post articles by Arianna Huffington and David Loy. Where do they agree and where do they diverge?
• Why has mindfulness become common in public schools? Why are some people concerned about this trend?
ENDNOTES
1. Richard King, “‘Paying Attention’ in a Digital Economy…,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 31-33, 36.
2. Kevin D. Williamson, “’Mindfulness’ is Just Commercialized Corporate Speak for Buddhist-inspired Help Training,” Dallas News, Jan. 9, 2018, https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G; Ronald Purser & Edwin Ng, “Corporate Mindfulness is Bullsh*t…”, Salon, Sept. 27, 2015, https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ; David Forbes, “Occupy Mindfulness,” CUNY Academic Works, July 1, 2012, https://bit.ly/2sbc3z3.
3. Noah Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley, Meditation is No Fad, It Could Make Your Career,” Wired, June 18, 2013, https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek;
Bret Stetka, “Where’s the Proof that Mindfulness Meditation Works?” Scientific American, Oct. 11, 2017, https://bit.ly/2xzyaiP.
4. Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley…”
5. Candy Gunther Brown, “Textual Erasures of Religion: The Power of Books to Redefine Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation as Secular Wellness Practices in North American Public Schools,” Mémoires du Livre 6, no. 2, Aug. 18, 2015, https://bit.ly/2TStZ1I.
6. Amanda Ream, “Why I Disrupted the Wisdom 2.0 Conference,” Tricycle, Feb. 19, 2014, https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
7. David Loy, “Beyond McMindfulness,” Huffington Post, July, 31, 2013, https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO; Purser and Ng, “Coporate Mindfulness…”; David Forbes, “They Want Kids to be Robots…” Salon, Nov. 8, 2015, https://bit.ly/2Qp2PJj; Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transformations of Mindfulness,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 14.
8. Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transfomations of Mindfulness,” 6, 14.
SEE MORE BUDDHISM CASE STUDIES
SEE MORE TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDIES
Mindfulness in Silicon Valley
BUDDHISM CASE STUDY – TECHNOLOGY | 2019
Soren Gordhamer, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Jon Kabat-Zinn on a panel at Wisdom 2.0 in 2011. Photo by elizaIO via Flickr Creative Commons: https://bit.ly/2F8wkhkPDF CASE FILE
DOWNLOAD CASE
NOTE ON THIS CASE STUDY
New technologies present both opportunities and challenges to religious communities. Throughout history, many religious people have created and used new technologies on behalf of their religious traditions. At times, religious needs have driven technological innovation. Yet many religious people have also tried to limit the use of certain technologies that they felt violated principles of their tradition. The relationship between religion and technology is complex and highly dependent on context. As you read these case studies, pay attention to that context: Who are the groups involved? What else is happening in their context? Who benefits from new technologies? Who get to decide if they are legitimate or not?
As always, when thinking about religion and technology, maintain a focus on how religion is internally diverse, always evolving and changing, and always embedded in specific cultures.
Silicon Valley, a region of central California, is a major economic center and home to many companies that specialize in technology like the internet, computers, social media, and more.
Over the last decade, many of these companies have heavily invested in trainings in “mindfulness,” which is the English name for a diverse set of Buddhist religious practices that have a history going back thousands of years. In particular, the forms of mindfulness promoted by these companies are influenced by 20th century Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar and Zen Buddhists in Korea. Because of Silicon Valley’s economic, political, and social power, this approach to mindfulness has spread rapidly. The mindfulness industry is now worth over $1 billion in the US, and corporations like Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, and Aetna have joined Silicon Valley in offering mindfulness training. Some estimate that 20% of US companies now teach mindfulness, and many of them fund mindfulness training in public schools. Even the US military has used mindfulness to calm soldiers before they are sent into combat.
In Silicon Valley, major companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter have adopted mindfulness practices. Companies have claimed meditation is a “technology,” and they market this technology to tech-savvy consumers under trendy names. Jon Kabat-Zinn offers “mindfulness-based stress reduction,” Kenneth Folk promotes “open-source enlightement,” Google talks about “neural self-hacking,” and Soren Gordhamer developed “Wisdom 2.0.” In 2010, Gordhamer started an annual event to discuss mindfulness in tech companies, also called Wisdom 2.0, which has drawn thousands of high-powered CEOs and tech workers. In 2011, Google invited celebrated Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to Google’s headquarters to lead mindfulness practice. Many companies claim mindfulness trainings have reduced employee stress and increased productivity and profits. However, studies with control groups are inconclusive in proving these claimed benefits.
While many trainers in Silicon Valley acknowledge that mindfulness is a Buddhist practice, they also claim to remove religion from it. They often characterize their programs “Buddhist-inspired,” making the connection to Buddhism while reassuring their largely non-religious audience that they are not promoting religion. For example, Kenneth Folk described Wisdom 2.0 as “a networking opportunity with a light dressing of Buddhism.” Some question if corporate mindfulness is Buddhist at all; companies usually claim that these trainings are “secular,” even when they bring in well-known Buddhist leaders for trainings. However, some Buddhists claim that “secular” mindfulness is “stealth Buddhism,” which allows Buddhism to be exported to businesses, schools, and hospitals without accusations of proselytizing.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who gave a keynote address to Google employees in 2011. Photo by Duc Truong in 2006 via Wikimedia Commons: https://bit.ly/2F4hqZtDespite support from some prominent Buddhists, other Buddhists are concerned by the proliferation of these mindfulness practices. At the 2014 Wisdom 2.0 conference, Buddhist practitioner Amanda Ream and other members of a local meditation center protested the event. They called attention to the hypocrisy of the nation’s richest CEOs discussing an escape from suffering for themselves while they were causing suffering for poorer Americans through gentrification in central California. Security removed the protestors without their concerns being addressed. Ream later wrote that true dharma “directs us to feel the suffering of others.”
Ream’s protest was one example of some Buddhists’ concerns about mindfulness in the tech world. Several prominent Buddhists have accused companies of promoting “McMindfulness,” meaning the values of neoliberalism instead of Buddhism’s call to end suffering. Neoliberalism is a dominant economic philosophy in modern American industry that promotes profit-driven, free market capitalism in which workers are responsible for their own well-being. From this perspective, individuals can “choose” between being stressed and sad or being happy and healthy. McMindfulness enables this view by offering a technology workers can ostensibly use to choose health and happiness. However, Buddhist critics claim that this use of mindfulness only shifts the blame for stress onto the employees and discourages them from questioning stressful working conditions. Plus, Buddhist critics note, Silicon Valley profits from mindfulness as a solution to problems it is partially responsible for creating. These Buddhists worry that Silicon Valley is funding McMindfulness because it teaches workers to be “unquestioning consumers” and “compliant” workers. Buddhist monk Bhikku Bodhi noted, “Absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stablize… consumer capitalism.” In his view, mindfulness has become a “handy buzzword” to sell products.
With billions of dollars in funding from Silicon Valley and American consumers, mindfulness has impacted Buddhism worldwide. Historically, many Asian Buddhists have focused on ending suffering, destroying the self, and escaping from samsara, but American Buddhists have increasingly focused on mindfulness for personal, inner healing rather than future liberation. Asian Buddhists have begun to similarly emphasize mindfulness in new ways, reflecting the growth of Buddhism in the West and transforming the tradition as it encounters new cultures.
Buddhism Case Study – Technology 2019
Additional Resources
Primary Sources:
• Google video on well-known Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s visit to their corporate headquarters in 2011: https://bit.ly/1yKInY1.
• CNBC video of Google’s chief mindfulness expert teaching corporate mindfulness on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (2013): https://cnb.cx/2VG9yT0
• Huffington Post article by company founder Arianna Huffington on the money to be made from promoting mindfulness (2013): https://bit.ly/2RaKUeH
• Editorial by Zen Buddhist teacher David Loy on the dangers of “McMindfulness” (2013): https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO
• Amanda Ream on disrupting Wisdom 2.0 (2014): https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
• Editorial by journalist Kevin Williamson critical of corporate mindfulness (2018): https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G
• Editorial by Buddhist scholars Ronald Purser and Edwin Ng critical of corporate mindfulness (2015): https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ
Secondary Sources:
• RLP video explaining the concept of neoliberalism (2018): https://bit.ly/2TuwYZx
• NPR radio program on Wisdom 2.0 and the 2014 protests: https://n.pr/2GVF4Jj
• Wired article on the importance of mindfulness to Silicon Valley CEOs and employees (2013): https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek
Discussion Questions
• Why might Buddhists have such diverse views on the spread of mindfulness in corporations?
• What is neoliberalism? Why do some Buddhists see corporate mindfulness as a neoliberal tool?
• Why might corporate mindfulness trainers continue to teach the Buddhist origins of their trainings, while still claiming to be “secular”?
• Is corporate mindfulness Buddhist? Who gets to decide what is Buddhist and what is not?
• Watch the CNBC video of a corporate mindfulness training. How might you imagine different Buddhists would responds to this video? What about their cultural context might cause them to respond differently?
• Compare the two Huffington Post articles by Arianna Huffington and David Loy. Where do they agree and where do they diverge?
• Why has mindfulness become common in public schools? Why are some people concerned about this trend?
ENDNOTES
1. Richard King, “‘Paying Attention’ in a Digital Economy…,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 31-33, 36.
2. Kevin D. Williamson, “’Mindfulness’ is Just Commercialized Corporate Speak for Buddhist-inspired Help Training,” Dallas News, Jan. 9, 2018, https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G; Ronald Purser & Edwin Ng, “Corporate Mindfulness is Bullsh*t…”, Salon, Sept. 27, 2015, https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ; David Forbes, “Occupy Mindfulness,” CUNY Academic Works, July 1, 2012, https://bit.ly/2sbc3z3.
3. Noah Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley, Meditation is No Fad, It Could Make Your Career,” Wired, June 18, 2013, https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek;
Bret Stetka, “Where’s the Proof that Mindfulness Meditation Works?” Scientific American, Oct. 11, 2017, https://bit.ly/2xzyaiP.
4. Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley…”
5. Candy Gunther Brown, “Textual Erasures of Religion: The Power of Books to Redefine Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation as Secular Wellness Practices in North American Public Schools,” Mémoires du Livre 6, no. 2, Aug. 18, 2015, https://bit.ly/2TStZ1I.
6. Amanda Ream, “Why I Disrupted the Wisdom 2.0 Conference,” Tricycle, Feb. 19, 2014, https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
7. David Loy, “Beyond McMindfulness,” Huffington Post, July, 31, 2013, https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO; Purser and Ng, “Coporate Mindfulness…”; David Forbes, “They Want Kids to be Robots…” Salon, Nov. 8, 2015, https://bit.ly/2Qp2PJj; Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transformations of Mindfulness,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 14.
8. Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transfomations of Mindfulness,” 6, 14.
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2023/07/04
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes : 1 hour video, Internet Archive
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
movies 1 hour
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes
Publication date 2018-06-17
movies 1 hour
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes
Publication date 2018-06-17
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Publisher Seattle Community Media
====
How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality is a vitally important philosophical challenge. Author and cellular immunologist Barbara Ehrenreich shares insight from her latest book Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, and tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end—while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.
We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But Ehrenreich shares the latest science which shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own “decisions,” and not always in our favor. Ehrenreich is joined onstage in conversation with KUOW’s Ross Reynolds. Together they delve into the cellular basis of aging and shows how little control we actually have over it, starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers. Ehrenreich describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. Join Ehrenreich and Reynolds for thoughtful considerations of the aging process (and our control over it) and the offer of an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of over a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. She has a PhD in cellular immunology from Rockefeller University and writes frequently about health care and medical science, among many other subjects.
Ross Reynolds is the Executive Producer of Community Engagement at KUOW. He creates community conversations such as the Ask A events, and occasionally produces arts and news features. He is the former co-host of KUOW’s daily news magazine The Record and KUOW’s award–winning daily news–talk program The Conversation.
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 5/2/18
====
How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality is a vitally important philosophical challenge. Author and cellular immunologist Barbara Ehrenreich shares insight from her latest book Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, and tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end—while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.
We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But Ehrenreich shares the latest science which shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own “decisions,” and not always in our favor. Ehrenreich is joined onstage in conversation with KUOW’s Ross Reynolds. Together they delve into the cellular basis of aging and shows how little control we actually have over it, starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers. Ehrenreich describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. Join Ehrenreich and Reynolds for thoughtful considerations of the aging process (and our control over it) and the offer of an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of over a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. She has a PhD in cellular immunology from Rockefeller University and writes frequently about health care and medical science, among many other subjects.
Ross Reynolds is the Executive Producer of Community Engagement at KUOW. He creates community conversations such as the Ask A events, and occasionally produces arts and news features. He is the former co-host of KUOW’s daily news magazine The Record and KUOW’s award–winning daily news–talk program The Conversation.
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 5/2/18
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