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Just the opposite, I see empathetic, gushing, ridiculous cotton candy optimisim all over places like LinkedIn and the corporate world. Everybody Smile! There isn't nearly enough contention, questioning, satire (notice how SNL never really goes for that) etc.. Marc Benioff spends the entirety of his time virtue signalling about how he is saving LGBT refugees from this or that, while superficially that's nice, it's ultra narcissistic PR and self aggrandization to use those people as tools for corporate branding. Nobody calls him out. On the contrary, I see a lot of dour young people, with kind of a 'lack of faith' in the general sense, which is really odd, and I suggest maybe a new concept in the west. When I was very young we had the 'Cold War' with nukes starring right at us and we were full of ... gumption, positivity, pride, goodwill, hope etc.. Finally - I don't think positivity/pessimism matters that that much - you have to be a 'strong believer' in some capacity to innovate, the rest is head games. |
I don't think this sort of cynicism about LGBT rights activism is helpful. If we want to make progress in this area, we need support from all sectors of society. That definitely includes people who aren't saints and who don't act from wholly disinterested and pure motives. Whatever his motives (and I can't read his mind – can you?), Marc Benioff did something substantial to support LGBT rights when many other CEOs did not.
There's no objective content to the accusation of "virtue signalling". It's a zero-effort means of objecting to whatever kind of activism someone doesn't like. Instead of making a substantive criticism of the activism itself, just jump to uncharitable conclusions about the person's inner motivations.