And finally, where has all your talk of authenticity gotten you?

In light of all the talk here this week about softer, kinder 21st century virtues, I’ve found it amusing that the Chicago car dealer called McGrath Honda recently changed its TV jingle.

Since time out of mind, it was, “When you do the math, you’ll choose McGrath.”

Sometime in the last year or so it became, “When you choose McGrath, love lights your path.”

In pool of soupy horse shit, that is a bath.

Speaking of which, in the maw of the debate about Lucinda Holdforth’s book on phony authenticity, we also learned about a whole new genre in merde de cheval—the “Gratitude Post” that laid-off employees are supposed to make, ASAP after their sacking.

And that’s my last word on Lucinda Holdforth’s critique of 21st century virtues: Where has worshiping at their alter gotten us? For all the talk of authenticity in the modern workplace, it seems corporate workers are, every bit as much as they ever were, Stepford workers, leading Stepford lives.

How can we make this better? I have a thought, which I’ll try to develop here next week. Get your Gratitude Posts ready.

Speaking of which …