We’re told, “yoga will teach us who we are,” but I am hard pressed to see much self knowledge in Cal’s asana-crazed studio culture. Most of what I see is tad too repetitive, over-conditioned, standardized for my taste. An insecure foil of approval-seeking, fashion (lycra and tattoos for days), with lil knowledge of Self on grid. Yoga, enmeshed with, and subservient to, the “Palo Alto Effect.” From global capital to Yoga culture, California’s influence on markets and mayhem is not news!
Native Californian himself, Malcom Harris, charges Californians as being the MOST conditioned people in history of the world (Harris, 2023). From Gold Rush to Hollywood to Silicon Valley, the ‘merchant / adventurer’ class of CA live at a dystopic brink like nowhere else on earth.
Like when the Davis yoga studio owner tells the yoga class that she’s teaching she owns 3 Mercedes and property in the city. After all, health = wealth is CA’s #1 credo.
“People know what they want bc they know what other people want.” — Adorno
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
(We’re coming for ya, 1%)