Mastodawn

Chris is.Dec 11

I think that by designating “virtue signalling” as “cringe” we’ve left ourselves with only “vice signalling”

@offby1 who's "we" kimosabe?

From the beginning, "virtue signaling" as a neologism was used by conservatives to denigrate progressive efforts to do good things. The man credited with popularizing, if not coining, the term in 2015, has a very specific biography, which you may find interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bartholomew_(journalist)

James Bartholomew (journalist) - Wikipedia

@offby1 It's often been smuggled into faux-centrist opinion pieces in order to describe it as a uniquely leftist problem, or to do fake both-sides shit where doing less-than-maximal activism to address a problem is falsely equated to being a monstrous ghoul who profits from worsening the problem

@offby1 to be clear: no shade for not clocking this. I can't remember exactly when I learned this "fun fact" and I've definitely also been mislead by similar memes. It's exhausting to constantly be on guard against this relentless and indiscriminate propaganda machine

Chris is.Dec 11

@glyph I’m well aware of the value of actually signalling virtue, but I’m also in the world as it is today and I’ve seen ample indication that performance of virtue tends to be coded as or criticized as cringe. I’m also especially aware of how much more true this is towards the “right” end of the political spectrum, leaving a hole in the narrative where maximum vice signalling rules.

@offby1 we are violently agreeing I think, you’re pointing out that people have fallen for the grift and although I think I misread you at first, ultimately I am pointing out where the grift that you’re saying we collectively fell for comes from (and that it is a grift)

@offby1 I guess I think we should adopt a more aggressive tone here, and just say, fuck yeah, have virtues. and signal them. virtue signaling is good actually. no moderate position required. and in the rare case it’s lightly problematic, the problem is the faking not the signaling, so just ask people to show up for the virtue and not shut up the signaling

Hynek Schlawack Dec 11

@glyph @offby1 I find this whole discussion entirely moot because no matter what your stance on virtue signaling is, it’s not a leftist thing. What one considers a virtue depends on one’s values and having a bible verse in your bio or a Roman statue for avatar is indistinguishable to me from pronouns or land acknowledgments.

@hynek @offby1 A frictionless spherical virtue signal, perhaps. But viewing it this way ignores the provenance and purpose of the concept, and why it has been absorbed into discourse in the way that it has. From the wikipedia page: "The concept of virtue signalling is most often used by those on the political right to denigrate the behaviour of those on the political left."

@hynek @offby1 It's sort of like the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expectations". In abstract, interpersonal terms, this is arguably a real phenomenon; perhaps even a bigoted phenomenon. It's definitely a thing white liberals do. But the phrase was not coined to combat bigotry, it was designed to undermine and sabotage attempts to develop equitable affirmative action. So when you try to communicate the general idea with this specific phrasing, other undesirable memetic detritus adheres to it.

Hynek Schlawack Dec 11

@glyph @offby1 What I’m saying is that we should just call their virtue signaling for what it is and make the term meaningless as it is. Remember that next time you see a rolling coal with southern flags

Chris is.Dec 11

@hynek @glyph See, I’d call Rolling Coal a prime example of Vice Signalling, like pardoning drug kingpins and eliminating diversity initiatives.

Hynek Schlawack Dec 11

@offby1 @glyph That’s my exact point tho: virtue and vice are in the eye of the beholder. They think they’re signaling US virtues, you think they signal idiot vices — and vice versa

Chris is.Dec 11

@hynek @glyph I don’t think I completely agree, in part because some of these “vices” only exist as intentional counterparts to perceived virtue or “elites”; they are conscious rejections of what they’re “supposed to” be doing. “Owning the libs” isn’t signalling a virtue, it’s making vice into one. Which is not, to me, the same thing.

Hynek Schlawack Dec 11

@offby1 @glyph Pretty sure being a truck-driving, god-fearing American living in liberty is virtuous to them and owning the libs that keep forcing clean air and health care on them is their way to preserve that (again: to them). It’s about showing their truck buddies they share the virtues!

It’s not like the left is above doing/saying dumb shit to signal their virtuosity.

@hynek @offby1 You've got a point that, at root, people don't intentionally do things they think are actually bad, but … "vice signaling" is a real thing, in the sense that conservatives do a version of virtue signaling where they do something that they do believe is surface-level bad or at least will be perceived as bad, in order to illustrate the "greater virtue" of the freedom to do it.

@hynek @offby1 Like, most mainstream conservatives generally won't admit even to themselves that they think that saying the N-word is, in itself, good, but "opposing censorship" is, and thus saying the most heinous shit imaginable under their own names in public fora is good, because it proves that they are free to do so. (Some people doing this do, in fact, think that saying the heinous shit is good in its own right, but those have a whole vernacular around "hiding their power level")

@offby1 @hynek @glyph
Rolling Coal is the ultimate in small dick energy. They could have said it with a bumper sticker instead, but they must think those things are too small.