Logan’s Run and burnout culture
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 10 minute read This is an excerpt from my chapter ‘The Woke Mind Virus.’ A Logan’s Run update on Yuppiedom Writing in Chicago magazine in 1980, Dan Rottenberg was the first to coin the term ‘Yuppies:’ ‘Something is occurring in Chicago … Some 20,000 new dwelling units have been built within two miles of the Loop over the past ten years to accommodate the rising tide of “Yuppies”—young urban professionals rebelling against the stodgy suburban lifestyles of their parents. The Yuppies seek neither comfort nor security, but stimulation, and they can find that only in the densest sections of the city.’[1] Moving forward to 2024, Damien Walter explores the 1970s science fiction classic Logan’s Run[2] as an allegory of today’s achievement culture: ‘Take a look around your bourgeois workplace, maybe it’s a tech start-up or a tech giant, a marketing agency or a media company, a Game Dev, a business consultancy; today even banks and accountancy firms run this way. Your office … looks like the primary colour set of 1970s sci-fi movie; there’s an unlimited supply of caffeinated energy drinks and probably a foosball table; your workplace looks more like a college dorm or a child’s day-care than like a workplace place, all to persuade you that you aren’t really at work, but this job eats every moment of your waking life and you never really sleep. If this is you, then congratulations you’re a member of the creative class and you’re among the elite. Everyone in your company is beautiful, well-dressed, young, oh-so-young. But think about this, where are the old people, is there anyone over 40 in your office? What did they do with the old people? You’ll find out when your life-clock begins to flash and you get the call to Carousel.’[3] Logan’s Run takes place in the year 2274; in a cluster of geodesic domes the remnants of human civilization live in a dome-enclosed city, run by a monolithic master computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live in a hedonistic utopia: no-one works or gets married; there are orgy rooms where people go to have sex and do drugs[4] but, to prevent overpopulation, all must undergo the rite of ‘Carrousel’ when they reach the age of 30; a ritual in which they are killed under the guise of being ‘renewed’ (as an infant in the city’s cloning facilities.) At birth, each is implanted with crystal in the palm of the left hand: their ‘life-clock.’ The crystal changes colour from white to yellow...
Cultural Marxist corporate bedfellows
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 8 minute read This excerpt is from Chapter 4: ‘Postmodernism and the academic mindset’ and follows on from Environmental, Social and Governance practices (ESGs.) Cultural Marxist corporate bedfellows So we’ve taken a look at the World Economic Forum and Stakeholder Capitalism. With that in mind let’s return to James Lindsay and his talk to the European Parliament. Many people have been confused about why ‘the woke Left’ is allied with the corporations, rather than with the working-class: Jake from Rattlesnake TV experienced a genuine a-ha moment: ‘That the corporations are now the friends, and this makes so much sense, because the Left used to be about fighting the billionaires and fighting the man, and the corporations, and the institutions man, but now they’re in bed with those very entities. ‘This is by design, they barely even disguise it these days, the corporations are their allies and they have absolutely zero regard for the working-class, but moreover it goes to show that this is an ideology that fundamentally preys on the weak and disenfranchised for survival. … But what I really got from that was the sinister nature of these ideas and how far intellectuals will go to win the ideological battle. ‘It’s designed to look at society and say who are the most downtrodden individuals that we can recruit for the revolution. They do not care about these people. It’s always been about the ideas. It’s always been about the revolution, and just as they ditched the working-class for the corporations, they will happily ditch the minorities for the next batch of revolutionaries.’[1] And so, the Marxists took on culture: ‘And so, they started to transform the culture industry, to sell racial, sexual, gender sexuality-based agitprop as though that were genuine culture, and so we get concepts like cultural appropriation, we get concepts like cultural relevance, cultural this, cultural that, cultural everything, and it’s all provided in pastiche, it’s all provided as a mockery of what’s really going on. And this evolved in America’s highly racialized context. And we ended up with Woke, a form of identity-based Marxism, a constellation of Marxist species.’[2] Lindsay says that LGBTQ+ and other ‘folk’ think of themselves as nations, … they all have flags, [and] they put them on your buildings like colonizers, … They think of themselves as occupying nations, bound together, … and seeking liberation from Western civilization.[3] ‘Now you know the theory is Marx, it’s just evolved into different species to attack the West at its weakest points, through our tolerance, through our acceptance, through our...
Environmental, Social and Governance practices (ESGs)
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 14 minute read This excerpt is from Chapter 4: ‘Postmodernism and the academic mindset’ and follows on from The Great Reset. Environmental, Social and Governance practices, (ESGs) One of the problems of Stakeholder Capitalism is making its goals measurable: the Bank of America report states: ‘Some 90% of major U.S. companies now issue corporate sustainability reports outlining their environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, compared with just 20% a decade ago. Yet even as companies work to lower their carbon footprints, invest in communities, and support diverse workforces and racial equality, as well as efforts to help protect the environment, what had been lacking was a common set of metrics and processes for measuring or demonstrating results. ’’However, in September 2020, WEF’s International Business Council unveiled in a new approach in Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics for the private sector, by releasing the world’s first standardized ESG measurements. Since their release, more than 200 companies have committed to implementing the metrics, and more than 130 have incorporated them into their annual or sustainability reports.’[1] During COP26 in Glasgow,[2] the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) was established, tasked with delivering a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability disclosure standards to meet the needs of global financial markets. These standards will set how companies disclose information about sustainability-related factors that may help, or hinder, performance. The need for such guidance was underscored in late 2021 when sixty global businesses representing over EUR 8.5 trillion in assets and employing over 5 million people released an open letter calling for close alignment between mandatory sustainability reporting requirements in the EU, and the global process to launch the sustainability disclosure standards of the ISSB.’[3] The Bank of America report goes on: ‘Stakeholder capitalism holds that companies must support a wider array of constituents than just shareholders. The magnitude of current global challenges including the ongoing health crisis [the pandemic,] persistent issues of racial and income equality, and an increasingly vulnerable environment have given stakeholder capitalism new meaning and urgency.’[4] For Capitalism to solve these problems, ‘the United Nations identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), calling for urgent action by 2030 on issues such as climate change, global hunger and clean water and sanitation.’[5] Klaus Schwab calls this a unique moment in history to walk the talk: and to make stakeholder capitalism measurable: ‘Having companies accepting, not only to measure but also to report on, their environmental and social responsibility will represent a sea change in economic history.’[6] The Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics, thus created, are arranged into four pillars, outlined in the WEF’s report, Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism:[7] Principles of Governance –Leaders...
The Great Reset
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 10 minute read This excerpt is from Chapter 4: ‘Postmodernism and the academic mindset’ and follows on from The World Economic Forum. Involving ‘the youth’ It is interesting, though, how much the WEF carries the ‘performative’ spirit of Live Aid and has come, at times, to look to ‘the global youth’ for guidance: and how non-governmental organizations–which are typically voluntary groups or institutions with a social mission, operating independently from the government–have been increasingly participants at meetings: the rock star Bono, for instance, has been a regular invitee to the WEF since the mid-2000s. ‘The WEF has survived by adapting to the times. Following the surge of so-called anti-globalization protests in 1999, the Forum began to invite non-governmental organizations [NGOs] representing constituencies that were more frequently found in the streets protesting against meetings of the [World Trade Organisation (WTO,] [International Monetary Fund (IMF)] and Group of Seven. ’In the 2000 meeting at Davos, the Forum invited leaders from 15 NGOs to debate the heads of the WTO and the President of Mexico on the subject of globalization. The participation of NGOs and non-profit organizations has increased over time, and not without reason. According to a poll conducted on behalf of the WEF just prior to the 2011 meeting, while global trust in bankers, governments and business was significantly low, NGOs had the highest rate of trust among the public.[1] ‘In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last September, … Klaus Schwab, was asked about the prospects of “youth frustration over high levels of underemployment and unemployment” as expressed in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, noting that the Forum was frequently criticized for promoting policies and ideologies that contribute to those very problems. Schwab replied that the Forum tries “to have everybody in the boat.” … In reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement, Schwab said, “We also try … to put more emphasis on integrating the youth into what we are doing.”[2] What is wrong with that, I hear you say? Well, nothing, except it has paved the way for what we see today: the emergence of Woke Capitalism and its totalitarian tendencies, as Ilan Kapoor argues in his essay ‘Humanitarian Heroes?’ ‘ … that celebrity humanitarian heroes help legitimate late liberal capitalism and global inequality. Their outwardly “altruistic” and “heroic” humanitarianism is belied by several accompaniments: its tendency to promote both the celebrity’s brand and the image of the “caring” (Western) nation; its entrenchment in a marketing and promotion machine that, willy-nilly, helps advance corporate capitalism and rationalizes the...
The World Economic Forum
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 10 minute read This excerpt is from Chapter 4: ‘Postmodernism and the academic mindset’ and follows on from the history of Cultural Marxism. The World Economic Forum Today, one of the foremost organisations which promotes a globalist—and more recently a woke—agenda is the World Economic Forum (WEF.) Headquartered in Geneva, and holding its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the WEF describes itself as ‘an international not-for-profit organization focused on promoting cooperation between the public and private sectors. Founded in 1971 by German economist Klaus Schwab, WEF seeks to foster a spirit of collaborative entrepreneurship to address global issues and shape governmental, industry, and social agendas.’[1] Since the adoption of its new manifesto in 2020, ‘ … [the] WEF is formally guided by stakeholder capitalism, which posits that a corporation should deliver value not only to shareholders but to all those who have a stake in the destiny of the company, including employees, society, and the planet. Its goals include a commitment to “improve the state of the world.”’[2] According to the Transnational Institute (TNI) think tank, the WEF ‘began in 1971 as the European Management Forum, … [then] changed its name in 1987 to the World Economic Forum after growing into an annual get together of global elites who promoted and profited off of the expansion of “global markets.” It is the gathering place for the titans of corporate and financial power.’’[3] The annual meetings at Davos ‘are a means to promote social connections between key global power players and national leaders along with the plutocratic class of corporate and financial oligarchs.’[4] The WEF has been ‘a consistent forum for advanced “networking” and deal-making between companies, occasional geopolitical announcements and agreements, and for the promotion of “global governance” in a world governed of global markets.’[5] TNI calls it ‘a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization’s “Mafiocracy” of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas and serve common interests: their own.’[6] Davos McKinsey and Company website says: ‘Davos, Switzerland, is where the World Economic Forum holds its annual meeting. Delegates from many sectors converge for several days of talks and meetings to address urgent global issues.’[7] ‘A highly curated selection of delegates from global business, government, civil society, media, and academia converges on this Swiss town to attend sessions designed to spark fruitful discussions around the most pressing issues of the day—and ultimately drive impact. But Davos isn’t just about the keynotes. The meeting is also famous for the networking and socializing that goes on in the corridors, side rooms, hotel...
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