Mindfulness has been weaponized by employers to extract labor focus

Evidence

The contemporary reactivation (and in some cases reinvention) of Eastern contemplative disciplines over the last thirty years amounts to a vitally important “school” for recruiting, nourishing, connecting, and activating Attention Activists. Are there critiques of the ways that certain aspects of the modern mindfulness movement look a little like dreamy Orientalism for the twenty-first century? Sure. Can one worry that some strains of mindfulness practice (the corporatist ones, for instance, promoted by employers to increase worker “efficiency”) have actually been “captured” by the very forces against which we must fight? Certainly. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 321

Categorization

• XREF: Parallel to Frankfurt School’s analysis of the culture industry and to the reader’s human-fracking thesis: contemplative depth mined for productivity. — connects to: Employers co-opt wellness tracking to surveil workers and boost productivity — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 235