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user-inactivated · 3236 days ago · link · · parent · post: Buddhism 2.0: materialistic, entrepreneurial, and consumerist
I think there is an interesting essay to be written by someone who is not me comparing the pop mysticisms you see happening in the corporate world (mindfulness consultants...) with the gnosticism, neoplatonism and hermeticism of late antiquity. One of the explanations for those schools becoming popular over the (mostly materialistic) hellenistic schools was political action becoming ineffective, so people felt trapped by the world the lived in and couldn't do anything about and concentrating on an imaginary one was an escape. Maybe people are trying to buy into buddhism because they too see capitalism asan inescapable reality that mostly ignores whatever economic system the regional power is pretending to enforce.