New Age Spirituality: The Opiate of The Elite? -zizek

The "Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way for us to fully participate in capitalist dynamics while retaining the appearance of mental sanity. If Max Weber were alive today, he would definitely write a second, supplementary, volume to his Protestant Ethic, entitled The Taoist Ethic and the Spirit of Global

via cabinetmagazine.org

Feb 21 2010I agree with Zizek. As a mass religion, California New Age is kind of superficial. People work like dogs here, in jobs that are killing them. They buy enlightenment on the weekends by adopting the New Age hipster look, forking out serious money for Raw Food, Yoga and New Age dance. Following Zizek's logic, the four dollar Heirloom Tomato from the Farmer's Market, is a fetish object or transitional object that we cling to, in order to repress the fundamental alienation that we feel in our Contemporary, Californian, Elite Lives.
I disagree with Zizek about the Mystic Traditions springing out Asia. Zen and other Buddhist models have a very sophisticated epistemology, and set of body-mind-breath disciplines for investigating the Self.

Jasper Gregory

She Was a Sweetie. We Played Together In Sweet's Ballroom Lighting

(I Met Her at Sunday Morning Ecstatic Dance in Oakland. She Was Sweet, and We Played In The Sweet's Ballroom Lighting)

Feb 20 2009
I took street fashion shots at Ecstatic Dance, a kind of Dance Church for the Burning Man Subculture. They are a kind of New Age spiritual community imported from Hawaii's Big Island. I was disappointed in the Burning Man Fashion though, The yoga-pants-that-make-my-ass-look-good thing is really overplayed. They are part a new uniform for the New Age elite of Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Marx called religion "The opiate of the masses". Zizek thinks that New Age Spirituality is the opiate of the alienated knowledge processing elite within Digital Capitalism.

Jasper Gregory