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> Political arguments now involve trading accusations of “virtue signaling” — the idea that liberals are faking their politics for social reward — against charg

by floren 8y ago

> Political arguments now involve trading accusations of “virtue signaling” — the idea that liberals are faking their politics for social reward — against charges of being Russian bots. I particularly enjoyed this sentence coming as it did after the following: > If a Russian troll using a Brazilian man’s photograph to masquerade as an American Trump supporter watches a video on Facebook, is that view “real”? > Next time Russians want to puppeteer a group of invented Americans on Facebook, they won’t even need to steal photos of real people

claudiawerner 8y ago
What always gets me about the concept of 'virtue signalling' is that it seems to imply that the virtuous opinion is not sincerely held, because if 'virtue signalling' were to include sincerely held opinions, any statement on a moral issue made to multiple others counts as 'virtue signalling', and suddenly the concept isn't useful any more. For instance, if I say "murder is wrong", does this count as virtue signalling? Should it only count if I secretly believe murder is right? Alternatively, virtue signalling refers to showing off our sincerely held beliefs to gain social credit, but I don't see why that would be bad either; we do many things (like make friends and show our accomplishments) to gain social credit, so why should voicing our opinions (with the effect of having like-minded people befriend you) be such an action to deserve the derision it gets? It seems that "virtue signalling" is a very flimsy accusation; it is to say "you're lying, since nobody could possibly hold such a kind position sincerely". Maybe it's even an effect of an age in which we're so cynical that we expect anyone who holds a kind opinion to be acting insincerely. The answer to accusation of virtue signalling should always be this simple: show evidence that I don't sincerely hold the opinion, then you might be onto something and we can start talking about social credit and instrumental rationality. Until then, an accusation of virtue signalling is as substantive as saying unicorns are real.
- xamuel 8y ago
  I always interpreted virtue signalling not as implying insincerity, but rather implying the main reason they're broadcasting the belief is to put a spotlight on themselves. If there was a murder in the news and you immediately went on Facebook to post "Murder is bad" so people would Like your post, that's virtue signalling. Of course murder is bad. Only a crazy person would think murder wasn't bad. So there's no point posting that opinion on your feed, unless your goal is to get Likes. A less silly example might be if an acquaintance posts a picture of themselves at a restaurant and you post an unsolicited reply saying "I would never eat that, I'm a vegan." Ok, maybe you really are a vegan, but you're just posting that to look morally superior.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Murder is unlawful, whether it's bad is... variable. From the perspective of then-applicable British law, the American Revolution was a massive seditious conspiracy involving tens of thousands of murders. While that's a fairly extreme example, you see some of this playing out with more recent murders, like those in anti-abortion extremism, where there is a constituency that sees them.as justified whether or not legally murder.
    - xamuel 8y ago
      No sane person thinks murder is good, rather people differ in what they consider to be murder. Soldiers killing enemy soldiers in combat during a war is not really murder, who cares what some judge 3000 miles away says. Btw when you say "recent murders, like those in anti-abortion extremism", that makes it sound like that's much more recent/common than it really is. The last three such cases were in 2015, 2009, and 1998, per wikipedia (granted the 2015 case left three dead). I wonder why those cases get disproportionately so much more attention than, say, the ongoing genocide of Christians by ISIL.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Personally, I don't like virtue signalling whether it is someone bragging about their recycling habits or how many times they go to Church. It's an obnoxious scramble in the monkey status hierarchy, and it generally makes me suspect the signaler of virtue is lacking in such in general. Whether or not it is virtue signalling about a "sincerely held belief" is kind of irrelevant. Sincerity is also not, as they say, computeable.
- losvedir 8y ago
  I think you're debating the merit of the "virtue" part - whether it's sincerely held or not - while to me the main idea is the "signal" part. You see this debate regarding the value of, say, a Harvard education: is it the knowledge gained, or the "signal" of having been accepted to it? Similarly, when I hear accusations of "virtue signaling", I understand the person to mean that the action in question was used to signal something, not to inherently accomplish something. As an example, consider beliefs about global warming. Whether or not you "sincerely" believe in global warming is immaterial to most accusations of virtue signaling. What you do about it is the question. The question to ask is, what did that action accomplish? So, posting a link to some article on facebook is likely to not really accomplish anything, and so the point of posting it was likely to signal. On the other hand, posting about how every year your family takes a trip to Europe, but you've realized that uses too much fuel, and instead your family is going to have a nearby "staycation" in the woods out back: that actually accomplished something, and I wouldn't expect to see that called "virtue signaling".
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    Is this not a rephrasing of the GP's position? To "signal something, not to inherently accomplish something" is to be insincere in one's virtue (and therefore, at least on some accounts, to fail to act in accordance with virtue). Edit: That probably sounds more confrontational than I mean it to be. Rephrased: I think 'claudiawerner nicely exposes some of the flawed reasoning behind characterizations of "virtue signalling." What advantage in understanding do we gain by divorcing "signal" and "accomplishing something" that is not covered by either (1) (unsubstantiated) insincerity, or (2) sincerity that we don't find objectionable (the "Alternatively" clause)?
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    I think that comes with a certain ideological slant and is highly issue-dependent and thus inappropriate for the concept of virtue signalling most generally. To say that one is virtue signalling when one complains about global warming may be virtue signalling by some definition, but if it is then I would also say that not all virtue signalling is bad. Telling your friends about some issues or even letting them know your position can be important. The idea that one can't care about global warming or loses the right to make an issue of it when they don't do much themselves seems to say to me that one must believe individual solutions work to combat global warming. Now I'm not arguing for or against such an idea, but I'm sure we can both imagine cases in which it is useful in itself to raise consciousness, or socially useful to let others know your position. Maybe 'hypocrisy' is a better word for what's happening, if you feel that way. It could also be said, using your point of view, that the 'virtue' part is important, because the virtue isn't held sincerely if you're just posting a link about it. You tie the virtue signalling to the authenticity of the signal, as do I but in a different way. The sibling comment to this one makes the same point. This issue also comes into play when one is accused of virtue signalling when in an Internet argument, which I think is mostly a bad faith accusation lacking evidence (which I mentioned earlier). Arguing for a particular position isn't necessarily virtue signalling.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Complaining about virtue signalling is just a bid to define the nature of the conversation, which is the object of bad-faith discourse; not to engage with the person you are nominally conversing with, but to demonstrate the ability to out maneuver them as a performative gesture to an online audience. Hence the popularity of all those "Snarky Talker DESTROYS member of reviled out-group!!"

by floren 8y ago

claudiawerner 8y ago

What always gets me about the concept of 'virtue signalling' is that it seems to imply that the virtuous opinion is not sincerely held, because if 'virtue signalling' were to include sincerely held opinions, any statement on a moral issue made to multiple others counts as 'virtue signalling', and suddenly the concept isn't useful any more. For instance, if I say "murder is wrong", does this count as virtue signalling? Should it only count if I secretly believe murder is right? Alternatively, virtue signalling refers to showing off our sincerely held beliefs to gain social credit, but I don't see why that would be bad either; we do many things (like make friends and show our accomplishments) to gain social credit, so why should voicing our opinions (with the effect of having like-minded people befriend you) be such an action to deserve the derision it gets? It seems that "virtue signalling" is a very flimsy accusation; it is to say "you're lying, since nobody could possibly hold such a kind position sincerely". Maybe it's even an effect of an age in which we're so cynical that we expect anyone who holds a kind opinion to be acting insincerely. The answer to accusation of virtue signalling should always be this simple: show evidence that I don't sincerely hold the opinion, then you might be onto something and we can start talking about social credit and instrumental rationality. Until then, an accusation of virtue signalling is as substantive as saying unicorns are real.

xamuel 8y ago
I always interpreted virtue signalling not as implying insincerity, but rather implying the main reason they're broadcasting the belief is to put a spotlight on themselves. If there was a murder in the news and you immediately went on Facebook to post "Murder is bad" so people would Like your post, that's virtue signalling. Of course murder is bad. Only a crazy person would think murder wasn't bad. So there's no point posting that opinion on your feed, unless your goal is to get Likes. A less silly example might be if an acquaintance posts a picture of themselves at a restaurant and you post an unsolicited reply saying "I would never eat that, I'm a vegan." Ok, maybe you really are a vegan, but you're just posting that to look morally superior.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Murder is unlawful, whether it's bad is... variable. From the perspective of then-applicable British law, the American Revolution was a massive seditious conspiracy involving tens of thousands of murders. While that's a fairly extreme example, you see some of this playing out with more recent murders, like those in anti-abortion extremism, where there is a constituency that sees them.as justified whether or not legally murder.
  - xamuel 8y ago
    No sane person thinks murder is good, rather people differ in what they consider to be murder. Soldiers killing enemy soldiers in combat during a war is not really murder, who cares what some judge 3000 miles away says. Btw when you say "recent murders, like those in anti-abortion extremism", that makes it sound like that's much more recent/common than it really is. The last three such cases were in 2015, 2009, and 1998, per wikipedia (granted the 2015 case left three dead). I wonder why those cases get disproportionately so much more attention than, say, the ongoing genocide of Christians by ISIL.
scottlocklin 8y ago
Personally, I don't like virtue signalling whether it is someone bragging about their recycling habits or how many times they go to Church. It's an obnoxious scramble in the monkey status hierarchy, and it generally makes me suspect the signaler of virtue is lacking in such in general. Whether or not it is virtue signalling about a "sincerely held belief" is kind of irrelevant. Sincerity is also not, as they say, computeable.
losvedir 8y ago
I think you're debating the merit of the "virtue" part - whether it's sincerely held or not - while to me the main idea is the "signal" part. You see this debate regarding the value of, say, a Harvard education: is it the knowledge gained, or the "signal" of having been accepted to it? Similarly, when I hear accusations of "virtue signaling", I understand the person to mean that the action in question was used to signal something, not to inherently accomplish something. As an example, consider beliefs about global warming. Whether or not you "sincerely" believe in global warming is immaterial to most accusations of virtue signaling. What you do about it is the question. The question to ask is, what did that action accomplish? So, posting a link to some article on facebook is likely to not really accomplish anything, and so the point of posting it was likely to signal. On the other hand, posting about how every year your family takes a trip to Europe, but you've realized that uses too much fuel, and instead your family is going to have a nearby "staycation" in the woods out back: that actually accomplished something, and I wouldn't expect to see that called "virtue signaling".
- woodruffw 8y ago
  Is this not a rephrasing of the GP's position? To "signal something, not to inherently accomplish something" is to be insincere in one's virtue (and therefore, at least on some accounts, to fail to act in accordance with virtue). Edit: That probably sounds more confrontational than I mean it to be. Rephrased: I think 'claudiawerner nicely exposes some of the flawed reasoning behind characterizations of "virtue signalling." What advantage in understanding do we gain by divorcing "signal" and "accomplishing something" that is not covered by either (1) (unsubstantiated) insincerity, or (2) sincerity that we don't find objectionable (the "Alternatively" clause)?
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  I think that comes with a certain ideological slant and is highly issue-dependent and thus inappropriate for the concept of virtue signalling most generally. To say that one is virtue signalling when one complains about global warming may be virtue signalling by some definition, but if it is then I would also say that not all virtue signalling is bad. Telling your friends about some issues or even letting them know your position can be important. The idea that one can't care about global warming or loses the right to make an issue of it when they don't do much themselves seems to say to me that one must believe individual solutions work to combat global warming. Now I'm not arguing for or against such an idea, but I'm sure we can both imagine cases in which it is useful in itself to raise consciousness, or socially useful to let others know your position. Maybe 'hypocrisy' is a better word for what's happening, if you feel that way. It could also be said, using your point of view, that the 'virtue' part is important, because the virtue isn't held sincerely if you're just posting a link about it. You tie the virtue signalling to the authenticity of the signal, as do I but in a different way. The sibling comment to this one makes the same point. This issue also comes into play when one is accused of virtue signalling when in an Internet argument, which I think is mostly a bad faith accusation lacking evidence (which I mentioned earlier). Arguing for a particular position isn't necessarily virtue signalling.
anigbrowl 8y ago
Complaining about virtue signalling is just a bid to define the nature of the conversation, which is the object of bad-faith discourse; not to engage with the person you are nominally conversing with, but to demonstrate the ability to out maneuver them as a performative gesture to an online audience. Hence the popularity of all those "Snarky Talker DESTROYS member of reviled out-group!!"