With its emphasis on personal detachment, mindfulness seems to this old man to undermine the social literacy that is the human genius. We possess the empathy to imagine, to be in another’s shoes.
And that literacy is especially needed in the modern world. With a food bank in every town, a Big Issue seller on every street and strangers clamouring at the gates, it is just plain wrong to seek a life of mindful calm.
But sadly fashionable. Mindfulness is indeed a therapy for our narcissistic time. It provides toxic endorsement of the selfie culture, where the priority of personal self-actualisation comes before all else, where emotional literacy has conceded to a preoccupation with self.
Stewart Dakers
