McMindfulness

“In this timely and incisive critique, Ronald Purser reveals how mindfulness became a vast industry, promising to cure us of a growing range of psychological ailments, and simultaneously propping up the political and economic system that generates them.”

“Ron Purser’s McMindfulness is a much needed wake-up call to the dark side of mindfulness-based practices. For anyone wishing to understand what mindfulness is, what it has become and how easily it has been co-opted by regressive social and political trends this is a MUST-READ.”

“Ron Purser cuts through the comforting New Age jargon used to promote mindfulness, enabling us to distinguish between the practice and its marketing.”

“Far from being either a harmless form of New Age self-indulgence or meditation dressed up as a medicalized antidote to the ubiquitous stresses of modern life, Ron Purser sees the mindfulness movement as epitomizing a malignant trend of contemporary Western individualism, one that is blinding us to the social problems of inherent in neoliberalism and capitalism, providing an anodyne where what is needed is rigorous analysis and political action.”

“What does it really mean to be mindful of our lives? In his eagerly anticipated new book, the foremost critic of the mindfulness revolution, Professor Ron Purser, provocatively illustrates how mindfulness has been hijacked by corporate interests, turned into an opiate of the masses, and how we can radically rethink the meaning of mindfulness in contemporary life.”

“If you are wondering about whether mindfulness is really a panacea for all our problems, this is the book to read”

“In this insightful book, Ron Purser has evaluated the strengths and weakness of the mindfulness movement, while clearly showing the way to cultivate authentic mindfulness that liberates us from the true causes of individual and collective suffering.”

“McMindfulness makes an important critique of self-centered mindfulness and points us towards a new vision for real social change.”

“Why is everyone practicing mindfulness? Is it really making us into better people? This insightful, thoughtful and lively book retraces the rise of mindfulness in all aspects of life. There could be no better guide than Ron Purser who is both an ordained Buddhist teacher, a cultural critic and a professor of management. Purser shows how the mindfulness movement has borrowed many ideas from the business model of McDonalds. He points out how this apparently good idea has had some rather bad outcomes.”

“This is it. McMindfulness is just the right book at just the right time. With crystalline clarity and delightfully lucent prose, Ron Purser prosecutes a devastating case that mindfulness enthusiasts have placed their practice in collusion with the malignant individualism of neoliberalism. Purser’s argument cannot be ignored. May it help turn the tide of western ‘spirituality’ toward a genuine model of personal and social health”

“Spiky, witty, meticulously researched and thoroughly engaging, McMindfulness is the best assessment of ‘Mindfulness’ to date. It eloquently critiques the Mindfulness industry, exposing its overblown claims, deriding what is at best political naiveté, at worst a strategy aiming to get us back with a smile to our voluntary servitude, to our reserved seat in the traffic jam.
Wedded to a strong sense of ethical and political engagement, Purser’s book convincingly denounces the commodification of Buddhism represented by Mindfulness. It unmasks the deluded claim of healing societal malaise via a thoroughly misguided, self-absorbed puritanical ethos and by entirely individual (and individualistic) means. McMindfulness joins the likes of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Smile or Die as one of the most thoroughgoing critiques to date of the neoliberal colonization of minds and bodies”