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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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One of tinder's (the dating app) newer features is the ability to add predefined interests to your profile. These range from various outdoor activities, hobbies, leftwing political causes, or just other random things like sushi.

One of the interests is "mindfulness" which really confused me. I figured it had to mean more than just "thinking a lot" because that is way too cringe to be one of the options. Eventually I figured it must be something spirituality related just because that kind of stuff is also well-represented in the choice of interest options.

When did "mindfulness" become a shibboleth?

When did "mindfulness" become a shibboleth?

I think it appeals to a range of groups: it avoids the financial and medical problems of anti-depressants etc., while also not requiring practitioners to confront their self-defeating thoughts and behaviours. As an approach to stress, anxiety, depression etc., it thus has the "benefits" of exercise and other methods that (I think) seem to work primarily through distraction rather than resolving cognitive problems. And it distills what Westerners usually like to think that the East is about:

It's like a tear in the hands of a western man

Tell you about salt, carbon and water

But a tear to a Chinese man

Will tell you about sadness and sorrow or the love of a man and a woman

(Jefferson Starship, "Ride the Tiger")

Spiritual, but without the burdens of actually and definitely believing in spirits, miracles, and all the other things that everyday Buddhists in the actual East have told me are the key features of Buddhism. No, it's really about living in the moment and finding yourself - a low cost American road trip, with incense.

Less cynically, it seems to have also become a term for engaged, purposeful, focused ways of living, which are probably conducive towards happiness.

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