The 80’s Were Bliss

Allow me to tell you a story about the 80's.

Many years ago, when I was but a wee child, when you went to the store you bought stuff. "What stuff" you might ask?

"Stuff the store sold."

For example if you went to the gas station you would buy gas there. If you went to Target you bought staples and everyday supplies. If you went to the coffee store they would serve you coffee. And if you went to a movie theater they would show you a movie. They were simpler times and it made my halcyon childhood days very enjoyable. But then something started happening in the 90’s that would end these blissful, innocent times.

College.

Well, not college unto itself necessarily, but the propaganda...err..umm... “education” my generation (Gen X) would receive in college. For you see, while we were all told we “had to go to college” because it was necessary for us to have any sort of career or professional life at all, at the same time some very conscious and very intentional people in academia had a political agenda. And it was to make sure that we not so much had skills that would land us jobs in the future, but more importantly (to them anyway) that we placed more value on social and political agendas than profit, production, efficiency and reality. So that by the time Gen X graduated from college, and inevitably started taking over the reigns of control of the economy (which we have), we would not be so much concerned with offering the best product at the best prices possible, but what I like to call “Profit Plus Purpose.”

Politics Politics Everywhere! In Your Soup and in Your Hair!

You see this “Profits Plus Purpose” every day in western economies. It is literally unavoidable. If you go to a hotel there is always a sign asking you to “save the planet” by reusing your towels. If you go to a coffee store they cannot help themselves from bragging about their organicfairtradefreetradegaiaunicorn credentials. When you walk into a Target they’re always bragging about how they give back 5% to the community. Even British Petroleum tells you about how environmentally friendly they are at their gas pumps, while Exxon Mobil actually has a “corporate social responsibility page.” Matter of fact, this propaganda is so thorough and so complete Generation Z will be the first generation to be brought up where there has ALWAYS been some kind of secondary political message forcefully embedded into nearly every product and service sold in America.

The reason “Profits Plus Purpose” propaganda was so COMPLETE and UNIVERSALLY successful can be found in its genius genesis. It capitalizes on the egotistical and lazy nature of human beings. Leftist academics and politicians started propagandizing Generation X in college with the beginnings of things like “diversity,” “feminism,” “environmentalism,” “global warming,” etc. (you could almost pinpoint it to the date “Captain Planet” first aired). Whether you believe in the veracity of these “isms” or not is moot, because their ulterior purpose was to give then-naïve-and-egotistical Gen X’ers immediate gratification, purpose, morality, and ego in exchange for their life-long leftist political loyalty and further advancing said political agendas well into the future.

Why, you weren’t just some rank and file Mechanical Engineering major. You were an environmentalist Mechanical Engineering major.

Why, you weren’t some massed produced business major. You were an empowered, feminist, future business leader.

You weren’t some worthless, math-avoidant liberal arts degree major. You were a pro-refugee activist utterly unemployable liberal arts degree major.

Thus, whereas learning a real skill from a real degree took deterring work, effort, and rigor, immediately subscribing to some kind of moral leftist political crusade was effortless, yet provided immediate value and agency. Gen X couldn’t sign up fast enough and thus virtue signaling and Social Justice Warriors were born.

However, “Profits Plus Purpose” found its most fertile ground in the business world because, to be blunt, business majors and business leaders are perfectly susceptible to it. Business majors and business leaders are simply not that bright. They are inherently more lazy than engineering/STEM majors and professionals. But more importantly, they are egotistical, demanding they make an engineer’s salary, while putting forth only 40% of the effort. This makes them particularly prone to succumb to gimmicks, scams, short cuts, and fads. And given the hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, that went into propagandizing and brainwashing every college student about the merits of leftist causes, it was just too tempting to take advantage of this “ideological infrastructure” that was laid down as a lazy-man’s way to market to naïve, indoctrinated sheeple. And so starting in the late 90’s long gone were the days where corporations simply sold you “stuff” and not politics.

Previous to the 90’s no corporation had a “CSR Department.”

Previous to the 90’s no mercantile store bragged about “going green.”

Previous to the 90’s no employer was championing how “diverse” they were.

Previous to the 90’s you could find cartoons, comic books, and movies that were entertaining and not a political sermon or lecture.

But now that is over. Corporate America insists nay, DEMANDS they shove leftist politics up your ass whether you want it or not.

There is, however, a problem.

Profits or Feelings, Choose One

Tempting as it is to use the leftist-political-religious-infrastructure laid down by academia over the past three decades to market to two full generations of virtue signaling sheep, entering politics is an unnecessary risk. Target found this out when they tried to be on the cutting edge of transgender politics, jumping into the fray of transgender bathrooms. Starbucks, more recently, realized all the protection money it’s paid to the left (literally in political donations) did nothing to prevent its debacle when they evicted two black gentlemen from their store. Even Google, with all of its politically correct chest beating, caught flak from some of their female employees when they fired a MALE ONE over a controversial memo. But in these customer revolts or boycotts are two distinct reasons for them, and they fall along political lines.

First, you have “conservatives” or simply “non-leftists” customers. They have things like family, career, community participation, etc., at the center of their lives, and are not terribly concerned about a corporation’s virtue signaling or politics. You can kick most conservative white suburbanite republican men right in the nuts and they’ll still line up to buy their Starbucks and their Apple products. In part because they’re supplicant, in part because "nothings too good for my little princess," but also because they do not put politics in the center of their lives. In other words, you have to REALLY work at it to alienate these otherwise incredibly docile and obedient customers, but when you do (like say, allowing men in the little girls bathroom), they will take note of your radical politics and take their business elsewhere.

On the other hand you have the left. And here corporations face their own Frankenstein monster. Because instead of selling them a good product at a fair price, you insist on selling them feelings, emotions, purpose, and politics. You pander to the purposed and intentional brainwashing they received in school, almost putting more emphasis on the politics than you do your product. And since most of these people have nothing else in their lives BUT their politics, they go apoplectic if you fail to pay the appropriate amount of homage to their political religion and themselves. This is why Starbucks is dealing with protests. This is why Silicon Valley faces a revolt within their female ranks. This is why Marvel comics is in a catch 22. They are political beings, not human beings, and they are beyond reason, rationality, and intellectual honesty. Only their feelings matter.

The Latest Management Fad

So let me tender something radical and revolutionary to my Gen X peers who now head up Corporate America. Something so crazy and innovative you could make an executive MBA course out of it and charge people $200,000 to take it. Something that is so insightful, you might even consider me “Jack Welch v. 2.0.”

How about you just not get involved in politics at all? I know there’s that huge, leftist-political-indoctrinated-infrastructure you desperately want to capitalize on. I know your ego is masturbatorily stroked when you virtue signal like you were trained to in college. I know you yourself likely have nothing else in life but a career and your recycling and telling me how you have a black friend. And I know you’re all likely just a bunch of low brow, 105 IQ MBA’s with no more creative arrows in your business management quiver.

But how about you just sell good products at fair prices?

Starbucks serves me my f@cking coffee and not ask me about race?

Target sells me my f@cking toilet paper and not lecture me about transgender bathrooms?

Hollywood makes me my f@cking entertaining movie without a political sermon?

Apple makes me my f@cking iPhone and not tell me about how green they are.

And colleges give me my f@cking degree without screeding about privilege?

Could you do the American people that modicum of courtesy and take your f@cking politics out of our lives? And could we return to those simpler times in the 80’s where stores sold “stuff” and nothing else? Meh...I guess not. I guess your pointless politics are more important than serving your customers.

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