We are repeatedly sold the same message: that individual action is the only real way to solve social problems, so we should take responsibility. We are trapped in a neoliberal trance by what the education scholar Henry Giroux calls a “disimagination machine”, because it stifles critical and radical thinking. We are admonished to look inward, and to manage ourselves. Disimagination impels us to abandon creative ideas about new possibilities. Instead of seeking to dismantle capitalism, or rein in its excesses, we should accept its demands and use self-discipline to be more effective in the market. To change the world, we are told to work on ourselves — to change our minds by being more mindful, nonjudgmental, and accepting of circumstances.

Extract from Ronald Purser’s new book, McMindfulness, at Teh Graun. It’s a hopeful sign that critiques of the neoliberal paradigm like this are creeping into more mainstream outlets — though it’s probably worth noting that Purser is published by Repeater, who also published the Mark Fisher collection, and the “privatisation of stress” thesis running through this piece is pretty much pure Fisher.