nihil admirarivirtue signaling is real, and you should be wary of those within Our Movement who do it. denying that it exists because right wingers have learned the phrase is really stupid and opens us up to being co-opted by psychos like, say, the children of hedge fund managers who live in penthouses and vote/donate to the democratic party and actively stifle progressive activism by having tantrums.
sam@lunch I mean I think it gets used by people on the left, too, who want to argue that all their critics are acting in bad faith, or just signalling virtue, as opposed to engaging for substantive reasons. I think the trouble with the phrase is like.... actually taking any kind of ethical stance in public is inherently virtue signalling, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. trouble is when what someone is signalling is counter to what they actually believe or do (which I think you're getting at).
@mardiroos that is indeed what I am getting at. My point is that it is a neutral term and you need to look at the context in which it is being used before you accuse someone of doing fascist dogwhistles
@lunch yup. for sure. it's a descriptor, and not necessarily of a bad thing, it's not like "degenerate" or something along those lines.
@mardiroos Exactly.