A pejorative term very loosely based on McDonaldization, George Ritzer’s theory of the process by which a culture increasingly looks and behaves like one big fast-food restaurant.

In this case it is feng shui that increasingly looks like it’s being served by fast-food restaurants.

Ritzer identified four main components of McDonaldization, but only three are relevant for McFengshui.

• Efficiency, which is the optimal method for accomplishing a task. (For example, quickly serving a very limited menu of cheap, overprocessed “food” to millions of people.)

  In the case of McFengshui, there is a “bagua map” with “eight corners” that has the same technique and results for a parking garage as it does for a hospital. This is the McBagua.

• Predictability, which provides standardized and uniform services. (No matter where you go, you have the same limited options — and the food looks and tastes the same.)

  For example, the McBagua contains a fame “corner,” a money “corner,” etc. This Procrustean version makes the traditional methods overwhelming by comparison — much like the difference between eating at a gourmet restaurant instead of a fast-food franchise.

• Control, which provides standardized and uniform employees. (No matter what employee you talk to anywhere, they behave predictably, and within a very narrow range of options.)

  In the case of McFengshui, you must endure the standard chatter about “clutter,” “energy,” “space clearing,” and other New Age woo.

The problem with McDonaldization

Something handled this rationally and this narrowly in scope can hide atrocities. Narrow rationalization quickly turns into irrational behavior.

Fast-food franchises insulate you from the realities of the McJob, the nightmare of factory farming, the ecological catastrophe of intensive farming methods, and from the obesity and diabetes pandemic in the (literally speaking) consumers.

McFengshui insulates with greenwash and reactionary ideas from the 19th century. While being told you are harmonizing with your environment, you remain ignorant of your true environmental impact. The concepts of clutter and space clearing are based on 19th-century home economics and Spiritualism. What began as a crusade for public health infrastructure degenerated into housekeeping as self-image, promoted by New Age antifeminism.

Fast food brought the world quick meals with enormous hidden costs. McFengshui works in much the same way. It can process a “consumer” and her money as efficiently as any steer or worn-out dairy cow headed for the killing floor.

Ritzer didn’t include his concept of consumer workers as one of his primary determinants in McDonaldization, but it is important in his theory and relevant for McFengshui:

One of the sneakiest things … is how consumers get tricked into becoming unpaid employees. They do the work that was traditionally performed by the company. (my emphasis)

With McDonaldization you use ATMs (instead of going into a bank with people) and salad bars (rather than being served). You clean up after you eat in a fast-food franchise. It is the same with McFengshui: you pay the company and do the bulk of the work by giving a McFengshui practitioner your past history, aspirations, and other information.

Traditional practitioners still operate like companies before McDonaldization: they expect to do the bulk of the work.