Rina Raphael
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
Yeah, completely. A lot of these things are taken from different practices and oftentimes sort of molded to really serve the self. A really great example is even if you take something like this idea of a digital Sabbath, right? This idea of completely logging off from all your tech. Yeah.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
People forget the fact that the whole idea of the Sabbath is not just to not do work. It's to be with your community. You're supposed to have meals. You're supposed to go to a synagogue. But instead, we just made it this thing that's don't be on your tech. Go do something else with your day. It's divorced from the idea of being with your community and being with other people and serving others.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
That's just one example. But there's so many examples of different ways that we've completely stripped down things to make it really about the self.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
This was so much fun. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you so much.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
Oh, I mean, it is an increasingly ambiguous term. It really was meant to be everything the pharmaceutical and health industry doesn't touch. And generally things that you could tend to yourself, like fitness, nutrition, relaxation techniques. But increasingly it's starting to mean things like beauty or spirituality. It can kind of mean anything. anything.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
And the problem with that is that whenever something starts to mean anything, it can kind of mean nothing. It has since sort of disintegrated into more of a consumerist term than anything these days, which is why now when you say the term wellness, people automatically think of things like CBD leggings and like face masks and bubble baths.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
There is almost a secular salvation of like, I will make myself fit. I will make myself well. I will make sure that I have all these incredible values about tending to myself. Actually, the Peloton founder in 2017, he gave a big conference speech where he talked about the fact that organized religion was on the wane and he had the answer.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
And so, you know, I make the argument that wellness acts like a deconstructed religion. It's like a regulated framework instructing us how to live our lives. You know, it dangles this hope or almost the salvation, this idea that if you work out enough, you eat right, you meditate, you'll feel good and manage whatever feels threatening in our lives, right? It offers this illusion of control.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
And the thing is, especially when it comes to sort of gyms, we end up sort of fetishizing our health and I'd say worshiping the self or the body. And the thing is, it's a false certainty because you will age. Bodies are unpredictable, famously unpredictable. Yeah, I think sometimes how we sort of treat health and wellness in an almost kind of religious way has its drawbacks.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
I'm not defending necessarily organized religion. I'm not saying everyone should join an organized religion. But there are some drawbacks to a bit of these what I call sometimes self-serving spiritualities. in the sense that they're more inward-facing than outward-facing. And so they don't necessarily have more communal properties.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
They don't teach as much about responsibility or community outreach or taking care of each other. They're really much more inward-focused and really about the self. And that's also because Americans are choosing more and more spiritual practices based on their feelings.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
Yes, because a lot of these sort of spiritual alternatives are more about how you feel, about self-soothing, about comforting. Take manifestation. That's a perfect example. This idea that you put good vibes out into the universe and work really hard and you can gather all the abundance that is sort of promised to you, that's really, really comforting to people.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
Yeah, what I think is so strange is that instead of batting together and demanding systemic solutions for maybe why we don't feel so good or why we feel unhealthy or even seeking communal support, we often retreat to the self, you know, the self-soothing, self-optimization or self-pampering of wellness issues.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
You know, we clutch our healing crystals, we ride our Pelotons, we take our bubble baths. You know, me, myself, and my credit card are the answer. And then we wonder why America is so lonely.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
I mean, businesses aren't set up to let people come when they fall in hard times. Organized religion has sort of figured out a way to really help people who have sort of lost their jobs or fallen on hard times. Or even if you think about, let's say, communal rights. If you don't have an organized, let's say, community and you have something like a death in the family,
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
your gym isn't going to organize the funeral and necessarily be there for you. In some instances, there are rare cases of that, but it's really sort of not the norm. So that's the thing. I think sometimes we need to figure out how to actually replicate what we have given up because we haven't really found that substitute yet.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
The flip side of optimism is gullibility, which is why a lot of people who are very into wellness can sometimes fall for things that just have no evidence behind them.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
Yeah. And I think that's what we mean when we say that like belief is such a huge part of of the wellness industry, it's also just so part and parcel of America. Like we happen to be a highly optimistic and consumerist nation. And the flip side of optimism is gullibility, which is why a lot of people who are very into wellness can sometimes fall for things that just have no evidence behind them.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
I actually wrote a piece for the New York Times about this. So now you have things like Ramadan bootcamp. You have like Catholic meditation apps. And basically because they're seeing that people want to meld their wellness with their spiritual practice. And by the way, I will say that religion is always sort of adapting to people's needs.
It's Been a Minute
Goodbye, church... Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
So this is just the most current iteration of organized religion saying, okay, this is what people are interested in. How do we give it to them? And there's even sort of religious wellness consultants who will go inside your church or your synagogue and say, okay, this is how we're going to refashion everything to get people in here who want to do fitness, nutrition, meditation.