the new narcissism (1975)
This article on Lululemon’s string of controversies and the company’s habit of hiring employees who participate in the Landmark Forum inspired me to revisit information on Landmark and EST today. I always find cults/ideologies such as these to be fairly interesting - as much for their promise of self-realization as for insight into potentially dark and intellectually-manipulative subcultures.
On the EST wiki there is reference to a 1975 article in Harper’s on the New Narcissism. The piece is fascinating not only for it’s relevance over thirty years later but on a more personal level, because I recognize some of the techniques from the teachings of my favorite yoga instructors. Reading this lent further credence to my preexisting anxieties about simon-says/chanting/repeating types of group practice. It also made me wonder about how to strike a balance between seeking personal value within a yoga practice and some of the more self-obsessed elements exhibited by survivalist individualism disguised as spiritual growth.
“…we struggle mightily to convince ourselves that our privilege is earned or deserved, rather than (as we must often feel unconsciously) a form of murder or theft. Our therapies become a way of hiding from the world, a way of easing our troubled conscience. What lies behind the form they now take is neither simple greed nor moral blindness; it is, instead, the unrealized shame of having failed the world and not knowing what to do about it.” - Peter Marin
