THE DECADENCE OF DISCIPLINE
In November 2018, Jack Dorsey, the brains behind Twitter, declared that he had gone on a 10-day silent retreat in Myanmar to practise vipassana, considered the oldest form of Buddhist meditation. Sounding more like the Monk of Silicon Valley than the Disruptor of Wall Street, Dorsey explained that giving up “devices, reading, writing, physical exercise, music, intoxicants, meat, talking or even eye contact with others” was a “detox of all the noise in the world”. Never mind that he conveniently forgot about Myanmar’s violence towards the Rohingya minority, not to mention that much of that noise is amplified through the platform he invented. More telling was the inadvertent revelation of the latest status symbol reserved for the one per cent: enlightenment. While you’re busy downloading Headspace and streaming a Tracy Anderson class, the extremely rich are locked in a holier-than-thou arms race to purge themselves of screens and discover inner peace.
Meet the spiritual snobs …
