I was not familiar with the term virtue signaling until I saw it used here by some conservative WSO members. It seems to be used here in a pejorative way when someone shares a view supporting minorities, women, the environment, etc. I am a little confused by its usage around here. One is virtue signaling when he or she shows empathy for black people but one is not virtue signaling when a person share a views in support of the right for a fetus to live.
I guess my question is: What is Virtue Signaling and What is it NOT?
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Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.
I take it to mean when someone excessively creates political posts on their stories denouncing their privilege or “educating” their less woke followers. really just anything in that realm to flaunt their moral superiority.
a virtue signaller to me is someone who jumps on a popular ideology of the moment to court attention. eg 20 years ago no one cared about vegan issues but now it seems to be an opening introduction when you meet strangers. it’s as if they do it to signal how morally enlightened or superior they are.... that is until the next fad pops up. Virtue signallers also have a superficial interest in the cause they champion. In the vegan example if they truly cared about animal rights they would have spent lockdown petitioning to abolish the horrors of wet markets in certain parts of the world and the animal cruelty that it entails instead of giving me a tough time for eating a burger. A non virtue signaller imo is someone who abides by a moral code/principles that are constant. eg people who support the current protests for racial equality, dignity & respect. By posting a black out on insta they are supporting a cause they agree with and are fixed in their thinking. I don’t consider that virtue signalling. Another eg are people who donate to charity to support causes they believe in without having to brag about it
Going back to vegan eg above I point out there are also genuine vegans for religious moral ethical reasons who resent those who see it as a hashtag. So one can’t really say all vegan are virtue signallers. People also have to talk about and create an awareness of issues which runs the threat of being labelled a virtue signaller. It is a difficult distinction to make.
I focus on - is their passion superficial in nature and will they still feel as strongly about it in 5-10 years.
Virtue signalling - It's just for show and not a true dedication to helping. Thots on ig posting the black square in order to gain brownie points but happily say the n word in songs and say racist shit against other races is virtue signalling.
The line is hard to tell as some people are now aware of the issue and genuinely want to help but others are using this as an opportunity to be "woke" and capitalize off of the external validation they receive.
The anonymous posters here are proving my point in that it is a term that some conservative people have latched onto as a way to disparage people who might have views different from their own views. I would rather have a conversation with someone who is not anonymous.
Ok buddy, nice tactic "you´re proving my point here", very mature.
My 2cts, if you please: "Virtue signalling" is, in essence, the Way of the Pharisee. Bowed heads, folded hands and empty hearts. If you virtue signal, you pretend to care about a cause and reflect it outwardly, while not following up your words of pathos with deeds.
On example, taken from a "conservative" (i.e. monarchist) view, just so you don´t try to dress this up as a issue of only one political wing: In my home country, there is a very famous book, The Subject (Der Untertan) by Heinrich Mann. The protagonist, a weak-willed wretch of a middle-class (Buerger) man with a pathos-filled admiration of the Kaiser and his system speaks all too often loudly about the importance of the military and how only the military service makes a man strong. He is, in this, the perfect voicecaster of his smug and hypocritical generation. And when he himself is called to serve in the mighty Imperial German army? He uses the first medical excuse, a slightly injured foot, to get out of service. And when he returns to his life of boasting, praising the Kaiser and drinking beer, he of course tells everyone how much he loved military service and the "tough but fair" officers he, in reality, so cowardly feared and hated.
That is virtue signalling. Loud mouths, loud gestures, always the first to speak and eager to receive the praises for the "selfless" and "virtuous" behaviour. And when duty really calls? Calls for painful deeds, not easy words? The oh-so virtuous are the first to disappear.
I hope I could clarify your question a bit, and feel free to contend with me.
You are the guy who has a strong Jdar and who can identify people based on their facial characteristics, Am I right?
Yeah that's cool and all but I'd rather not have some liberal IB hardo try to doxx someone for saying that they are against diversity hiring or that they don't think women are as efficient after they have a child. Say what you may about anon posting, but I definitely think it's a large reason why this website has flourished.
Why is this shit on WSO? Take your nonsense to a relevant forum.
There are of course relevant forums for that, but I think OP would not quite like to suffer the gaze of the Clover people.
Spot on.
This is virtue signaling:
Unless you're an absolute moron, you can figure out what it means lol
You created this post just to try and pick a fight with people who use this term to accurately represent a good 70% of the pop that tries to get in on a movement while not really caring much about it in order to appear virtuous to their peers & try to feel good about themselves
Dude, I am only trying to have a discussion and I am certainly not trying pick a fight. You could say that about nearly every topic deemed to be political. If you know anything about my topics or comments, they are from confrontational. I rarely ever use inflammatory language and never engage in name calling. I do not post topics to appear virtuous to my peers. I often post topics based on current events that seem interesting to me. There might be some people who create topics to appear virtuous, though.
"Everyone else in my group is bad EXCEPT FOR ME"
This goes for both sides of the political aisle: - Police - Congresspeople, recently a lot of Democrats who are pretending to be progressive now that it's cool with the youngsters, and previously a lot of Republicans who falsely found Jesus - Other public figures (influencers, streamers, talk show hosts, etc.) - General public on any given issue on social media - The current POTUS himself indeed virtue signals on a massive scale without being sincere on a number of issues (arguably he doesn't have a moral core whatsoever so everything he says is virtue signaling)
I have a personal distaste for people grabbing the mic, metaphorically speaking, and rushing to be loudly and publicly known as an "ally" rather than giving space to voices from those actually impacted. I'm sure you can pull out real life examples of this. It's as if it's more important that others know they are an "ally" of a given issue than bringing attention to the issue itself. Social media activism by people who were whisper quiet about an issue beforehand. Now do we really need a selfie to prove you were at an event, or could you put your money where your mouth is and donate, retweet an opinion without comment, or generally not put yourself in the spotlight?
All of the above is "virtue signaling" and it's as true for hypocritical child-molesting priests as it is for woke Karens on Facebook. Everyone's carefully managing their own brand and it's tiresome. I abhor insincerity.
Agreed, but this is often taken too far.
Real life example: In my fairly white town with a white mayor and a white police chief
Some kind of BLM walk through the city with elected officials giving their opinions on the current climate and talking about how they plan to improve it through legislation. Seems good right? Some highschooler wrote a letter essentially saying that because he was white, my mayor should not have been allowed to speak. Other officials, also white, should not have been allowed to speak on behalf of their town because their skin wasn't dark enough. I actually had a good chuckle when I read the letter, before realziing that it was shared an insane amount by my city's youth..
P.S., The letter also included a picture of all blacks killed by cops in 2019, including those who committed crimes with guns and blatantly said "hey im going to get myself shot by police." Just pure propaganda which as a young person is honestly making me lose faith in this country.
. https://twitter.com/KatilinWilde/status/1266465814703534081 .
Fresh
Virtue signaling has lost all meaning and is just a throwaway word conservatives use to justify doing “nothing” about real problems in today’s society while their liberal counterparts do “something”.
Post on social media? Virtue signaling March in protest? Virtue signaling Vote for issues you believe in? Virtue signaling Donate your time and money? Virtue signaling
I think you are right in that there might be some subliminal self justification for not doing anything. I think part of it is also a more sophisticated version of name calling.
Now Fox News is calling the fact that Biden is forgoing huge rallies in the middle of a pandemic as “virtue signaling”.
again, this word has lost all meaning.
Yeah, they should just say what they really mean: there wouldn’t be enough people for it to be a “rally”
Your are right. If a conservative person does not agree with what you are doing, they call you a virtue signaller. These guys think they are think they are still playing ball in the school yard. They call you a name to look like the big man on campus. All of their followers love the name calling.
ohhh but terms like "fascism" and "conspiracy theory" certainly have not lost their meaning in light of Dems' mindlessly tossing it around to everything they dislike... mhm ok
Well, I'll agree that "fascism" is being thrown around without context, to the point it's losing meaning.
However, the various conspiracies that the Trump Administration has been proven to enter into over the last 4 years or so are a matter of fact and public record, having been exposed and tried and found guilty. So I'm not sure what you're on about there.
The original virtue signallers were the Pharisees, conservative Jewish religious leaders in the time of Jesus. Jesus famously pointed out how the Pharisees would stand up and pray in the town square. They would do so loudly so as many people as possible could hear them, using flowery language. Jesus, being God incarnate (according to the Bible), could pierce the veil and see that their intentions were impure--they weren't really praying to God as a form of submission, love, devotion, or to help others; rather, they were praying loudly to be seen by the crowds and to be known for their holiness. It was pure self-aggrandizement; purely selfish.
Many people--not everyone, of course--virtue-signal regularly, and social media has provided them with the town square platform. They say things to as wide an audience as possible to be seen as "moral" or "righteous" by people who see their posts. They'll post a rainbow flag, for example, and when you're one on one with them they may let slip how they really feel about the "f*ggots." Or they post the black square for BLM while they live in super white communities and they tell their friends, "Oh, you don't want to live OVER THERE..." Another example might be a person giving $10,000 to charity (a charity they truly believe in) and then making sure the public knows about it. It's not purely selfish that they gave their money to the charity, but they clearly had mixed intentions, both pure and impure.
Virtue-signaling is just being a modern day Pharisee.
Hmm, we can't seem to edit posts now, but I would add that liberals--often accused of virtue-signaling--should be most sensitive to people who cynically use their causes to promote themselves. It should be offensive. You liberals should be on the side of conservatives who call out white BLM protesters, for example, who show up to a BLM rally for 5 minutes, take a selfie of HERSELF (let's be real), post it on IG and then leave. That should super offensive.
Very accurate description. Another SB for you.
Reminds me of this article: https://medium.com/thebyline/the-fight-against-racism-is-not-a-social-media-trend-d85109da0d28
Couple quotes from the article.
You have to exit the topic and come back into to edit it.
I think most liberals are against that. Most publications or opinions I read (and I'm not on any form of social media so I guess take that with a grain of salt) are extremely quick to condemn what I like to call social justice tourists. I agree that kind of behavior is virtue signaling and disgraceful.
On the flip side, most of the conservative publications or opinions that I read are pretty quick to denounce the movement as a whole, merely because some people are riding along for their own purposes. And while I agree it can be difficult to parse who is and isn't acting in that matter, at the end of the day these people are supporting an important social movement, even if it's for the most superficial and selfish of reasons. In that sense, I'd rather assume the best about someone supporting BLM than assume the worst, since even their self-serving behavior has some benefits.
+1 SB. However, on charities, I have a more nuisanced view. The best alternative is to do charity and not brag about it. However, if someone is doing significant charity work and they're bragging, that's ok. Maybe a little annoying sometimes, but look they're actually helping out. As long as you're not overdoing, I'm ok with that.
Also, if someone is really into a certain charity, then it's totally ok. For example, a good friend of mine has volunteered a day or two per week at an animal shelter for the past few years. He brings it up fairly often which makes him seem virtuous, but, he actually is a great dude for how much work is going into it, and it's a big part of his life so I wouldn't knock him for talking about it. He doesn't have to go stealth on his weekly activities just so people won't think that he is virtue signaling.
Where did you learn this?
Matthew 6:5. It's a relatively short passage in the Bible, but books have been written on it because there is a lot of context from outside of the Bible about the Pharisees.
Solid take.
I'd like to add to the list of examples - obnoxious people who "care" about the environment so much that they go out of their ways to tell people to stop eating beef all the while they buy water in plastic bottles, use plastic silverware, and do not recycle.
It doesn't have to be all or nothing, though. One can drink out of plastic water bottles and still ride public transit and eschew using pesticides or fertilizers on their lawns because they're aware of the danger of nonpoint source pollution. To act like one must either be perfect, or not bother at all, is a terrible argument. Pretty sure the largest sources of pollution are energy production, transportation, and food production. So if I'm installing solar panels and advocating for wind turbines, and I no longer drive a car for my commute, I'd argue I'm doing quite a bit to put my money where my mouth is, even if I still drink a Poland Spring every so often, or forget to recycle half the time.
I think virtue signaling really comes down to authenticity.
When you're loudly expressing views that make you seem virtuous but you have taken no actions in real life to support those issues. Example, telling people that everyone deserves a right to healthcare and shaming people who disagree yet you have never paid one penny of someone's medical bills.
Telling people that we should get rid of the wasteful paper cups in the break room but you drive an SUV.
Putting a BLM sign in your front yard, but paying an exhorbitant amount of money so that your kids attend nearly all white private schools.
I disagree with a lot of the views on the Left, but I respect anyone who actually rolls up their sleeves and does something to help. If someone gave St. Jude's hospital $20K last year and they have a strong opinion on universal healthcare, I want to hear their opinion.
Your healthcare view is flawed. It is like saying, “I think people should pay lower taxes,” and then me calling you a virtue signaler for not helping to pay people’s taxes so that they pay less. Since when is it virtue signaling to advocate for social services/reforms while not actually taking part in said service (either monetarily or otherwise)? If we didn’t have a fire department and I said, “I think everyone should have a right to protection from fires,” but I wasn’t using my own money to pay for a private fire department for my neighbors, does that make me a virtue signaler? This isn’t an attack on you or most of your post, but I do take issue with your the extrapolation of your healthcare argument, which is that simply having certain views or wanting reforms immediately imply that one is a “virtue signaler”.
I don't think your tax example works in the same way. Now, if I said, "We need to lower taxes on the poor because they're getting crushed and can't afford to survive" and I'm not doing anything to help them out, then that's virtue signaling in my opinon.
Also, shouldn't your views and your personal choices be the same at least to some extent? If I say that I care about poor people, but I spend all of my resources on mansions and BMWs, then my view is kind of bullshit?
I think this is one of the core moral problems in our society. It's the idea that we can somehow separate the things we believe about policy from the choices we make personally. If you think universal healthcare is great, funding for the homeless is wonderful, free tuition is awesome, it does not make you a good person. What makes you a good person is if you yourself are using your own resources and time to help others.
Note: I agree that there could be a person who does combine these things if they are honest with themselves. For example, I want universal healthcare for everyone but I simultaneously realize that I'm not a great person and don't want to pay anything myself. However, I doubt that these types of people spend a lot of time screaming at those who disagree calling them fascist, racists, or whatever because they disagree on the policy.
What truly defines the virtue signaler, in my opinion, is someone who identifies themselves as virtuous over their policy choices/activism rather than their actions. Ex. I believe in universal healthcare, so I'm a good guy. That other person doesn't; so they're bad.
Your thinking on this issue is very flawed. Your disdain for other points of view is clouding your lense. To say that someone who sends their kids to a private school is in conflict with a having a BLM sign is absurd. What if the person send their kids to private school but donates to initiatives that support BLM? Each person can support a cause as they see fit. Virtue signalling, as you might define it, is not only a characteristic of liberal people. If a conservative person puts a bumper sticker on his car supporting the NRA, is this person a virtue signaller or how about the conservative person who puts a jesus fish on their car? Is this person a virtue signaller?
Liberal people might be a little more vocal about supporting causes but that is about it.
Well, I agree there are multiple ways to help.
However, if you don't want your kids to go to a school with people of color even though the test scores at that school are fine, you're probably still a little racist even though you're sending some cash to BLM.
But why do you call out only the left? I've read estimates that 30-35% of America identifies as an evangelical Christian. And I guarantee you not one of them lives in accordance with Scripture. How is that not the original and highest form of virtue signaling? Demanding the moral high ground because you have a god on your side, and then going out and not living up to the example you demand of others? Especially seeing as more American policy gets dictated by the conscious of the Christian right than any other faction, this seems like a major issue to me
Because the topic discussion is about how the term "virtue signaling" is used toward the Left, but sure it applies to everyone. Conservatives as well.
Also, lately there is a tendency of the Left to label anyone who disagrees with their views as fascist, racist, or evil while at the same time believing their views make them virtuous.
If we had to set up a giganic scale and put an ounce weight on each side for each instance of virtue signaling in the all forms of media this year, how do you think that scale looks? Would the right and left be equally weighted at least in this past year?
Look, there's issues where the right does BS stuff and the scale is not even. If you had to place an ounce on a scale for every time someone mentioned patriotism to justify a stupid policy position, would the scale be equal? Hell no! It would weighed strongly to the right.
I think you are making a big jump here. Simply being a conservative Christian does not mean you are going to demand others to live by your rules "or else!". I had friends who were extremely conservative Christians (one of my friends was a girl who only wore skirts/blouses and said she didn't feel comfortable wearing anything else), but they never pushed their beliefs onto me. If I was really going through something rough, I'd ask them to pray for me and sometimes might ask some questions regarding their beliefs, but that was the extent of it. They did not go on droning about religion or how I was not living in accordance to some "high ground." Obviously anecdotes do not speak for the population at large, but I doubt that I just got super lucky or something.
I completely agree. Some people here think that religion is off limits when it comes to virtue signaling. Yet, I can't think of a topic which gets to to the core of virtue signaling more than religious expression. People who wear their religion on their sleeves want to show how they are part of a special group of believers or that they have a strong moral compass. Almost by definition, these people are virtue signaling. If someone is truly religious, he or she should not have to show the world their level of piety.
there's a block nearby where every house on it has a black lives matter poster. most also have a "hate has no home here" posted. and check these cats out. we get it. your home has no firearms. sheesh
Hey I'm offended. They forgot about "tRaNsGeNdEr WoMeN's RiGhT tO aBoRtIoN".
Person who lives there is probably a wealthy white woman with a xanax problem.
Actions speak louder than words.
If you talk the talk without walking the walk, you're virtue signaling.
Simple and sweet.
I think that virtue signaling is two fold - 1) performative allyship and 2) character judgements on the basis of said performative allyship.
In light of recent tragedies in the US, particularly during the summer, many woke rich white libs were beyond ecstatic to use these tragedies to enhance their personal "clout." The attitude has really become, look, I'm not a racist bigot because I did x, y, and z. But the problem is that x, y, and z are not legitimate metrics for determining bigotry (or whatever). For instance, voting Democrat and mindlessly re-posting Instagram graphics (filled with false information, but whatever - facts don't matter in the fight for SoCiAl JuStiCe) have absolutely zero correlation with one's virtue and one's character. Actions > words, every day. How do these rich woke libs actually TREAT and TALK ABOUT black people? Ohhhh, not that well - I'm shocked! If you want to go further, what has the Democrat Party actually DONE for black people in the past few decades... how have black people's lives improved under Dem leadership?
Therefore, making vain and typically factually false statements on social media (and maybe donating some $ to the Biden campaign or a bail fund) is just a way for elitist libs to signal to each other how virtuous they are. Like I stated prior, the mindset has become, wow I donated to Biden and post on social media that Black Lives Matter - I MUST be a good person. And everyone who doesn't do what I do is a racist fascist bigot. :)
edit - oh no - monkey shit! hoes mad to read that posting a black square on insta does not automatically make them a better person than those who didn't
What do think about the people who put a jesus fish on their car?
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