What I'm saying is that understanding the game that others play is necessary, whether you want to play it or not. If you don't play it because you're ignorant and don't even see that this is going on then you allow yourself to be exploited, you will expect things to happen to you that won't happen, then you become bitter and envious. On the other hand, if you consciously recognize that this game exists, you can navigate it better and still live the way you want, without being surprised by the consequences. For example, you can spend a lot of invisible effort on a project, because you hold the principle that you will not produce bad work even if nobody is looking. That's fine. But then don't go expecting that someone will reward you and don't be upset when promotions don't come. If you consciously understand this, you will know ahead of time that that "manipulative jerk" office mate will get promoted, so when it happens, you don't get angry and disappointed. You can stay calm and concentrated on your own journey.

By realizing that you do that invisible hard work (that leads to other people's promotions and enriches others) for your own spiritual sake or for a higher cause or for the order of the universe or whatever other reason, you can live in a balanced way, because you're consciously going in with this trade-off. You live up to some principles that you won't play games, you will play straight up, with high quality work without boasting and playing it up or telling anyone about it, but you also don't desire the riches and the status, that's okay.

My issue is with people who do wishful thinking. They set some principles first and declare that this is how the world operates. When it doesn't operate that way, they don't update their model of the world, but shut their eyes and deny the dark side of getting ahead, but then still complain that the world doesn't conform to their ideal.

This is far from postmodernism. I say look at the objective cold facts: who gets ahead and how, understand the rules, then consciously play it or don't play it, but know each trade-off involved and don't be surprised when your choice leads to the predicted result. And that predicted result could be perfectly fine! You don't have to get promoted out of technical work. Many people explicitly hate managing people and budgets and playing politics and love working with concrete technical things, and will happily trade those promotions and high-class life for an honest, principled, simple life working on interesting problems for decades without climbing a career ladder or keeping up with the Joneses. Nothing wrong with that! But then know that this is the deal you're subscribing to.