Navel-gazing

Forget incense and the lotus position, forget notions of "getting rid of thoughts" or "navel gazing," meditation is, more broadly and more helpfully for most people, getting to know our minds and hearts.

To whom, except to the author, could these narcissistic navel-gazings be of interest?

I believe that the Opposition, devoid of any argument of any weight in the debate, determined to have Parliament engage in a trivial navel-gazing exercise regarding who said what to whom, rather than to focus on the issue of whether or not members accept the sworn evidence of an honourable member of the House.

[Alvin Ward] Gouldner goes further in his reply to his critics (1974), who predictably accused him of (advocating) narcissicism, pathological navel-gazing, egoistic subjectivism and the rest. In response, he writes: “The ridicule of ‘navel-gazing’ expresses an uneasiness with all efforts at self-knowing and self-reflection. It is false consciousness’s effort to protect itself from change” (1973:124).

There is a final, internal aesthetic twist to these navel-gazings: translation is an enjoyable occupation.

In spite of efforts by the government to focus public attention on the economy and to turn Canadians away from constitutional navel gazing to the outward challenges of the global economy, it was the election of Bill Clinton to the American presidency that set the mood for political change at home.