The Politics of Attention and the Promise of Mindfulness

Lawrence Alan Berger, The New School for Social Research '16

Drawing on the thought of Martin Heidegger, Lawrence Berger argues that the state of attention determines the efficacy of public spaces in the articulation and fulfillment of visions of the common good. As politicians seek to amass power by capturing attention, citizens can employ attention techniques such as mindfulness to produce a public power that is better oriented to the welfare of all. These practices can foster the formation of ontological bonds between individuals, which can serve as the basis for creating more desirable and stable political conditions. Such bonds are produced through the application of a hermeneutical circle of attention, language, and embodied understanding that reflects the intrinsic value of mindfulness itself.

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