These days I find myself thinking a lot about the boundary, if there is one, between the political and the spiritual.
If you walk into a bookstore, much of the material on what is classified as “spirituality” is in the “self-help”/New Age section. Some of it is quite profound and deeply transformative. A lot of it, well, perhaps less so.
The “help” part of “self-help” — with the assertion that we are somehow in need of help — has its own issues. And of course, there is the unavoidable part where the “spiritual” solutions are commodified, thing-ified, marketized, and sold. A workshop here, a book there, a retreat here, an escape there. Promise of “happiness” and “wholeness” abound…
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