The Contemplative Elite and Capitalism

This chapter examines the contemplative mindfulness movement, detailing its success in legitimizing and popularizing mindful meditation while noting its limitations. The authors argue that elite movements can drive widespread cultural change by blending social movement mobilization, institutional entrepreneurship, field theory, and cultural diffusion. They contend that such movements are effective for elites' and professionals' reform initiatives because these actors leverage social networks, institutional resources, and symbolic power in their daily work. However, the authors propose that while these movements spread new cultures effectively, they often fail to achieve deeper structural social reforms.

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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.