The Contemplative Elite and Capitalism

Abstract

This chapter introduces the contemplative mindfulness movement, its successes in legitimizing and popularizing mindful meditation, and its shortcomings. This case demonstrates how elite movements can initiate widespread cultural change by combining elements of social movement mobilization, institutional entrepreneurship, field theory, and cultural diffusion. Investigating the contemplatives sheds light on how a movement can support elites’ cultural pet projects across multiple powerful institutional fields. This approach to cultural change is particularly efficacious for elites’ and professionals’ initiatives for social reform, as they can draw upon their social networks, institutional resources, and symbolic power to advance their causes in the course of their everyday lives at work. While such movements may succeed in spreading compelling new cultures, they may struggle to initiate deeper structural social reforms.