only three?
February 4, 2010 11:42 PM   Subscribe

Top 3 Worst and Most Self-Defeating Mistakes New Agers and World Savers Make

*Are perennially perky, positive people who see nothing but love and light, and encourage you to do the same even in your darkest hour.

*Are obsessively concerned with their carbon footprint (and yours) and bandy buzz words around like "sustainable," "organic," and "green."

*Preach that vegetarian, vegan, and raw diets are far superior to any other.

*Seem to have every answer to every existential question, yet their answers sound strikingly familiar to every stanza in The Power of Now.

You get the idea.


Meanwhile ...
posted by philip-random (35 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: this post is weird. -- jessamyn



 
Ah, yes, let's conflate climate change with raw diets and "remote healing." That will make an excellent MeFi thread. Excuse me while I go reheat a plate of beans.
posted by mek at 11:49 PM on February 4, 2010 [5 favorites]


Thankfully, albeit rarely, they get it right and form suicide cults.
posted by Davenhill at 11:51 PM on February 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


You know what the great thing about having a blog is? You can say whatever you like, and it doesn't matter whether it is true, or you have any evidence for it!

2. The vast majority of new agers and world savers have not done their own inner work and carry deep pain from unresolved childhood issues.

3. Most new agers and world savers though knowing every answer to every existential question can't seem to cross the bridge from knowing to action.

Yeah, new agers annoy me too, but I think this post is substanceless stereotyping.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 11:53 PM on February 4, 2010 [2 favorites]


Interesting that the linked article itself never once mentions hippies, yet the list of tags goes out of its way to be disparaging toward them. GYOB much?
posted by hippybear at 12:06 AM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


Is this site a bad joke?
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 12:10 AM on February 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


I, too, hate generic groups of bad people doing bad things.

Is there any point to this essay? It sounds like he has someone in particular he wants to criticize, but doesn't have the courage to say their name out loud.
posted by shii at 12:14 AM on February 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


It sounds like he has someone in particular he wants to criticize, but doesn't have the courage to say their name out loud.

Try the second link.
posted by philip-random at 12:17 AM on February 5, 2010


This post is weird.
posted by Captain Cardanthian! at 12:25 AM on February 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


top 1 mistake people who publish on the prestigious internets make: thinking they know everything
posted by citron at 12:44 AM on February 5, 2010


The Top 3 Mistakes Bloggers Make:

#3 — Confuse Charity for Vanity.

"Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know." — The Tao

You could also call this politics disguised as compassion in order to push a personal agenda or for a exposure opportunity to further a career.

#2 — Project Personal Issues On the World.

"Let him that would move the world, first move himself." — Socrates

'Nuff Said.

#1 — Fail to Act.

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." — Edmund Burke

Making a new post on a blog isn't action.
posted by bam at 12:44 AM on February 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


Why does this need to be brought to the attention to anybody other than the morons who already read that site?
posted by Epenthesis at 12:45 AM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


sorry
posted by bam at 12:49 AM on February 5, 2010


The evolver.net post is meant to be self-critical. The community appears to be comprised of new-agers and world-savers, more or less.
posted by furiousthought at 12:50 AM on February 5, 2010


This reminded me of Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

Going to the USA for the first time, I remember how the self-help and personal development section in bookshops frightened me as they were so enormous that there had to be a whole segment of the population with weird issues. Or they were just greedy, judging by the number of volumes on "how to get rich" kinda scam.

Also, there's Goodness Gracious Me's guru.
posted by lucia__is__dada at 1:04 AM on February 5, 2010


Its beyond tragic that "world saver" has a negative connotation. Indeed, it seems to be a sign that despite Coco's best efforts, cynicism has one the day. I'm sorry, Coco. We tried for almost two weeks.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:40 AM on February 5, 2010


Opening the World's Heart Chakra
posted by benzenedream at 1:45 AM on February 5, 2010


Obscuring the the meat in [more inside] and oh so cleverly cloud the front page with a gyobby rant about new-agers is weak sauce.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 1:54 AM on February 5, 2010


The blog post in the first link is quite thin, and not in a good way.

The interview in the second link is somewhat interesting, as exclusives with accused killers who have been very quiet and now can only speak on the end of a lawyer's leash tend to be.

The tags seem to be jumping off of cliffs of opinion not supported by the materials provided.

Perhaps if the second link were the bacon around something meatier this would be less the mehfest it has turned out to be.
posted by batmonkey at 1:57 AM on February 5, 2010


#3 — Confuse Charity for Vanity.

You could also call this politics disguised as compassion. The classic example is the marketer seeing opportunities in the $11B self-help industry who pretends to be a healer to turn a profit.


That confused me for a bit. I would have written "Confuse Vanity for Charity."

That's the feeling I get with the whole "Lefty" side of politics. Who really cares and who says they care coz they've latched onto a craze for their own benefit. For example, I rate Michael Moore and Al Gore as top shelf frauds.

Interesting doco I saw many years ago. A fella interviewed years later once did jail time with Charlie Manson, before the Manson Family murders thing went down, as well as hanging out with him on the outside. He said SoCal was a magnet for psychopaths and users like Charlie, all pretending to be hippies.

For some reason Charlie took a liking to this fella. He said when all the kiddies did the peace sign, Charlie used to do the peace sign with one finger and give him a bit of a nudge and a wink. "I'm looking out for number one."
posted by uncanny hengeman at 1:57 AM on February 5, 2010


Man, this is fucking gross. The "bullshit" and "damnedHippies" tags make it pretty clear that your intentions are gross too. Why is this here?
posted by DecemberBoy at 2:14 AM on February 5, 2010


I never read the tags. Certainly sounds like a way of circumventing a FPP editorial.

DecemberBoy, is it possible for you to participate in this thread objectively? Pretend you didn't read those mean, nasty tags?

THIS THREAD IS CLOSED. REASON: NO LEFT WING INTROSPECTION ALLOWED ON METAFILTER.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 2:27 AM on February 5, 2010


Somebody didn't read the metafilter FAQ.

3.1.2 Appropriate targets of approbation: Hipsters
posted by srboisvert at 2:34 AM on February 5, 2010


Duuuuuuuude. That was seeeriously randim. virtuously Phillip -K- Random, random. (give it time, but on comic sans as your text, and re read it. Then re-reread it.

Buuuut, I think wikipedia kind of summarizes the post.
The Native American community is sensitive to cultural appropriation of their traditions. This article summarizes an anthropological perspective and does not yet provide specific guidance on authentic ceremonies.

And some thoughts nxt.
Aboriginal people of both Canada and the United States have a different thought process entirely when thinking of what it means to think about the practice of Caring for peoples health and wellbeing. The three main western (corporate, mixed, and government) models of health treatment that history has brought us is completely different. We treat only in "cures"... while tradition treats in Healing. Health. Living life well. Health Care.
Medicine in the west is an Art, done by people who train in bringing together all of the many various SCIENCES.
Those sciences each may or may not have dirty elements (there are people who are not "newage" or anti Medicine in any way who would point out one where each of the sciences touches the Pharmaceutical groups, which have 'strategic' but not the most efficient and valuable money in almost all sciences relating to Health and bodies.). heck, Eugenics was recently one of of those "sciences" that legitimately was a member of that circle.

This is how we do it in the 3 main forms of health care provision we are most familiar with here (singlepayer, Mixed, and Corporate)... each essential the same in form, Wanting to administer various "cures" (via surgery, or other invasion process, no scare quotes intended on word invasion.) Only signifies a process whereby there is potentially do harms to a body (as well as doing good also generally.)

In the West, some are now studying now more critically if that is 'always' the best medicine; Aboriginal cultures have been self healing, treating, and most centrally, Caring.. Literally providing Health Care, in possibly more forms than we can fathom; Humans have in some known Caring, and Health Care, for let's say 515 Thousand years.
We are in about Year TWO THOUSAND now... are we that sure we are always enlightened... fully?

Tell me everyone receives health care. Please. (if response= yes.eelseatingliar.If no... why on planet earth not?)
The score is Aboriginal Care +1 here in my tally anyway.

(yeah, we might be missing a possible first use of a "NotNewAge-ist" tag. but with reading, and time, I thiiiiinnnk it is being suggested that being different is ok and allowable under our USS Constitution Liberty.)

Even when "cures" or genetic manipulation Eugenics, both 'well intentioned' or flat out racist, attempts at "re-direction" of genetic lines have been shown to have nearly erased human genes that we may SOON all need... it has been shown that pathology can become Physiology. Malaria, and the natural protection afforded to some individuals (oooh, hey, my global warming fixed action pattern button lit up!; with global warming, the extent and range of insects will change, altering the nice patterns that we know.)
We would have lost many amazing traits from the human code if all the various guises of eugenicists in history had succeed.

Just wanted to make those points. I agree it is bad that deaths were caused in that situation from post link#2. See link at top of my comment. Shirley, maybe this post has been an elaborately constructed honey jar to trap people who foolhardily and ideologically misguidedly mourn the death of world savers. When Dogood is dead. What hope is left?
posted by infinite intimation at 2:40 AM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


infinite intimation for the win.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 2:44 AM on February 5, 2010


Meh. Personal axegrindingfilter.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 3:35 AM on February 5, 2010


I missed the "...hippies" tag ...pleaseplease edit dear internet sir... I know a lot of people are really happy to hate at hippies these days, I think we take for granted sometimes these days the sea change that came with Hippiedom; but Hippies helped stop Vietnam. also, helped keep balls further rolling for civil change in the USA. Also... hippies made Willie Nelson. And if my intuition is anything to follow, Hippies likely (likely? No, Shirley!) indirectly led to Stephen Colbert too... now, as an internet voter, this offends me... Nation; I likely should have something important to channel here... It would likely be angry, snappy, snarky and catchy, but that is not possible (As a dedicated critical optimist... {as I am ALWAYS HAPPY. LIKE, JOKER HAPPY.WEEEEE. I CAN ONLYGrin.Not even GROWL. Love you,) shucks, Its easier if I just rewrite the first link to get a better perspective... (mine)
Dear MF, hope me, I am just TOO DARN perky and positive, I think if y'all were just more "sustainable," "organic," and "green." you could TOTALLY have a chance at fixing, like, the hole in the ozone layer,VERILY, I doth say, as shall be saith again, as has been before, and indeed will come to pass again, vegetarian, vegan, and raw diets are far superior to any other! Oi yea oh yea, y'know that deeply meaningful life question you were asking the other week on askme?... yea, Y'shoulda just like, used askME Because I'v got yr' answer (to everything, ever.)... y'gotta vote for me first, though, or I ain't tellin' u why we have them... or why Megatherium (see sloth post) are such massively big versions of those super cute little versions of the sloth which we all love with our enduring love...
VeganorganicHamburger?
AmIaccurate?
posted by infinite intimation at 3:36 AM on February 5, 2010


Glad that flags are working for me in Chrome, because this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen posted to MetaFilter and I'm disappointed that it has been allowed to stay.
posted by fixedgear at 4:19 AM on February 5, 2010 [3 favorites]



posted by ambulocetus at 5:03 AM on February 5, 2010


We would have lost many amazing traits from the human code if all the various guises of eugenicists in history had succeed.

Perhaps the expression of the traits could happen via epigenetic effects instead. Nudge a hormone level this way or that...play with the chemicals at time X during the 9 month development cycle....
posted by rough ashlar at 5:27 AM on February 5, 2010


Philippe, Philippe, Philippe, the saddest thing about the new age movement is a retarded man who is crying and promising a broken world that it will still be whole someday, and that they will play together in a field together when it gets better.
posted by fleetmouse at 5:34 AM on February 5, 2010 [3 favorites]


fuck
posted by fleetmouse at 5:35 AM on February 5, 2010


Excuse me while I go reheat a plate of beans.

Those had better be sustainably harvested, locally grown, vegan, un-declawed beans there mister!
posted by Pollomacho at 5:53 AM on February 5, 2010


Sounds to me like someone's bitter at their own "negative vibe" & chronic pessimism.
posted by tybeet at 5:57 AM on February 5, 2010


Wow. This is very undude.

I'll self-identify as a wacko neo-hippie type, but man, I expected like - some insightful criticism or something here. Maybe with some helpful suggestions about how to improve. But this is just really harshing my mellow.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:04 AM on February 5, 2010


Y'all just violated one rule of the interwebs: not reading 99% of crap blogs out there.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:06 AM on February 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


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