The author of this book, Rick Heller, has a number of interests: he is a software engineer, a freelance journalist, editor of an online magazine, a teacher and writer on mindfulness meditation, and now an activist at Occupy Boston (where among other things he led a mindfulness meditation at the encampment in Dewey Square near South Station). These many interests of are combined in his new e-book, Occupy the Moment: A Mindful Path to a New Economy. In this book, which is both a political tract for the times and a handbook on mindfulness meditation, he discusses some of his thoughts on the issues driving the "Occupy" movement, namely the growth of extreme economic inequality in the United States over the past thirty years, the ongoing environmental crisis, as manifested in pollution, depletion of non-renewable resources, and global warming, and the social and psychological costs of our consumer society. In fact as Heller notes, one of the paradoxes of the current economic order, is that we have millions of people who due to unemployment or underemployment are lacking the means to satisfy their most basic needs. Meanwhile, at the same time, we have many millions of people who do have enough to satisfy their basic needs but who find themselves trapped in what he calls the "consumption treadmill", where they become addicted to ever increasing consumption. The curious thing about the consumption treadmill is that the resulting overconsumption helps to worsen our ecological problems, increase financial indebtedness, both private and public, and yet, people do not seem to be any happier from this increased consumption. And ultimately, the consumption treadmill simply reinforces the subservience of the 99% to the top 1%. This sort of greed, which is by no means confined just to the top 1%, can be quite destructive. Heller notes that at the Occupy Boston encampment there is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, on loan from the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Mass., which bears a sign with the words, "The world holds enough for everyone's NEED, but not enough for everyone's GREED". In Heller's opinion (and in mine), this is one of the essential messages of the Occupy movements.
It is interesting to note that one of the greatest economists of the twentieth century, John Maynard Keynes, once made a similar point. He said:
"[I]t is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes - those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for, the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs." (from his 1930 essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren.")
At this point, probably should be said about the author's politics. Until quite recently, his politics were firmly centrist. His layoff from his software engineering job in 2004 failed to radicalize him. Instead, he pursued his interests in journalism and began to study up and write about the latest scientific research on the psychology and neurophysiology of mindfulness. What has impacted his political outlook was first the Crash of 2008 which convinced him that mainstream economists do not know what they are talking about. Then as he pursued his studies of the neuroscience of mindfulness, he began to attend to what he calls "mindful economics." Here, he draws upon the ideas of both J. K. Galbraith, in his book, The Affluent Society, and E .F. Schumacher, whose book, Small is Beautiful, came out in 1973. He believes that Schumacher had some very useful ideas, but that nevertheless they had failed to catch on in the UK and the US. Instead, those two countries, followed by most of the rest of the world, began to follow quite a different path, starting with the elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan which would eventually lead us to the position that we find ourselves in now. His politics are still mostly center-left; he comes out specifically against socialism. This reviewer disagrees with him about that, but he does make several important points that make this book worth reading despite such disagreements. He writes: "In order to effectively confront the greed of the 1%, we must also confront our own greed. For, otherwise, why should they listen to us? I'm not suggesting we retreat from protesting distortions to the American republic that have turned it into a system dominated by a wealthy elite. We should. But we need a two-pronged strategy of promoting social change and personal change." I think that is an important point. Back in the 1960s, it was common within the counterculture for people to debate the merits of pursuing personal change versus pursing social change as if one had to choose to do one or the other. In fact the correct answer is that you have to do both. The creation of a fairer, less violent society obviously requires a major overhaul of social institutions, including in my opinion the eventual abolition of capitalism, but it also requires changes in people's personal values too. A socialist society, an ecologically sustainable society, cannot work, if most people remain wedded to a consumerist outlook, nor would the kind of reformed capitalism that the author supports. I wish that he had fleshed out a bit more the dialectic of social change/personal change.
However, he goes on to describe a "mindful brunch" that he once organized for the Humanist Mindfulness Group in Cambridge, MA. At this brunch the rule was that people could chat while the food was being prepared, but once it had arrived, people would have to spend ten minutes in silence, while focusing on eating the food. As Heller notes, "...one of my fellow diners noted with surprise that he'd not completed his meal. Rather than gobbling it up, he ate slowly and, unusually for him, left some uneaten.... He also reported noticing a growing sense of fullness in his stomach as he ate, and a lessening desire to eat more." The point of this exercise was that mindfulness can make us more aware of how quickly something like our need for food can become satiated. And yet the multibillion dollar fast food industry in the US depends upon having a customer base that is not mindful when they are eating. For Rick Heller, this constitutes a paradigm example of the way that consumerism works.
In addition to all this, Rick Heller's book addresses an issue of importance to political activists, namely that of burnout. The Occupy movements are drawing both veteran activists from past movements plus many people who are new to activism. Those readers who are familiar with social movement activism know that these movements tend to draw a coterie of people who become very dedicated to the cause, often working on its behalf 24/7 for long periods of time. All too often, many of these people after having worked hard become burned out. Alas, when that happens, they frequently drop out of activism, often permanently. Rick Heller attempts to address this issue in his book. While he finds that anger, whether against people or institutions, can motivate people to become activists, it is insufficient for maintaining commitment over the long term. Furthermore, anger tends to breed its own poisons that can eventually lead to burnout. Here, he finds what he considers to be valuable insights in the Buddhist tradition (but which this reviewer thinks can be found in all the major religious traditions) that can help activists become "happy warriors" or at least "happy activists" by making use of mindfulness so that activists feel good and remain attentive to their own personal needs while keeping their eyes on their long term objectives.
In short, despite my disagreements with the author's politics, I think this book can serve as a useful manual for activists as they struggle to keep sane while fighting the manifest injustices of our society
