Podcast interview with Kaitlin Smith at Wild Mind Collective:
Inciting Change Through Courageous Thought + Action
Kaitlin Smith has created a fascinating and, in my view, increasingly necessary and important venue. It is very aptly named “Wild Mind Collective.” In her first post, Kaitlin writes:
As conditions within colleges and universities around the U.S. grow ever more dire for many knowledge workers, it is no longer terribly controversial to regard academia as a space of chronic disempowerment and emotional abuse for nearly everyone who enters its professional socialization process. This is particularly so for those inspired to amplify marginalized perspectives, deliver biting social critique, or resurface traditions of contemplation that contrast with the logic of mechanistic scholarly production…I have launched the Wild Mind Collective website because I believe that this void poses significant problems in both the lives of individuals and in broader communities hungry for the contributions of visionary thinkers rendered meek and self-doubting through academic socialization. Whether someone makes their professional home in academia, beyond it, or somewhere in-between, I want to live in a world in which all inspired intellectuals feel empowered to deliver authentic bodies of work within their chosen domains. I believe that our world desperately needs this sea change and we do, too.
For readers who are primarily interested in creating intelligent (rather than stultifying) spaces for x-buddhist practice, it should not be difficult to translate the higher education examples from Wild Mind Collective to this end.
You can read Kaitlin’s entire post the Wild Mild Collective website.
For my conversation with Kaitlin, click the image below. We discussed, in her words:
- [My] journeys within and beyond educational institutions
- Intrinsic barriers to the creation of new kinds of subjects (people) within academic training
- How political concerns have reshaped his scholarly work
- How the unexamined assumptions of Buddhism, mindfulness, and psychology undermine the liberation they claim to promote
- How he is creating space for inciting, public dialogues beyond the ivory tower
To listen, click image below.
Painting by Elena Drozdova, “Husband and Wife Sleep 3,” Acrylic on Mylar, 48 x 38 inches, 2014.
Non-Buddhism 
What do you think?