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I thought the GP's comment was the best I'd read in a while on HN, but you're right that it refers to a more specific phenomenon. The GP nailed it, though, with

I thought the GP's comment was the best I'd read in a while on HN, but you're right that it refers to a more specific phenomenon. The GP nailed it, though, with > The use of the term is purely to denigrate the person by vaguely deriding the values that they've presented as the basis for their argument. – which is the way it normally seems to me used on here. Someone says X, then someone else who doesn't share the feeling that made them say X, accuses them of virtue signalling. It's a bad faith, hostile thing to say - you wouldn't talk to your friends like that. It seems similar somehow to a term we have in Australia, a bleeding heart, applied by someone on the political right to someone on the political left who expresses, for example, sympathy with poor people or mentally-ill people. To someone without those sympathies, it will sound like the person is faking that emotion, being "politically correct", just saying what they think they should, morally, and not sincerely expressing how they feel, since the person on the right doesn't share that emotion. Such people are called bleeding hearts. (...I just looked at your comments and see you're in Oz too. Hi!) Actually, we (you, me, GP) are talking about two different things - one is the alleged signalling itself, which your definition describes. The other is the act of labelling something as virtue signalling, which the GP describes in the part I quoted. And like 'hater', 'whining', etc, people may be haters, may whine, but saying that to their face is an unfriendly, bad faith move. No-one feels they are a hater, or whining, or virtue signalling. They feel they're doing something else, and you're presenting your guess that they're wrong about that as a certain diagnosis. You claim to see clearly what they can't see at all. Seems to me, the use of the term "virtue signalling" as a weapon in a fight/debate is itself a pungent form of virtue signalling, and is the main one that bothers me! It attempts to signal that one is above virtue signalling, and like "You can trust me!" or "I'm not racist", raises its own doubts about that, for me at least. I don't like the term, avoid using it, and don't think it does any good. Which brings me to my so-called Arsehole Theory of the World - that those who spend their lives calling others arseholes, are themselves arseholes. Those who often call other people idiots, are idiots etc. It's not easy to be human and not a hypocrite. Easier to tell the other guy he's one. "A man should be very sure that he himself is not what he has always in his mouth." – Hazlitt, On Nicknames

Chris2048 6y ago
> a bleeding heart ... who expresses, for example, sympathy with poor people or mentally-ill people. To someone without those sympathies, it will sound like the person is faking that emotion, .. since the person on the right doesn't share that emotion. You've essentially redefined that word/phrase to imply that anyone using it is unsympathetic, which is very convenient to anyone who finds themselves accused of being one. It reminds me of definitions of SJW at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior - the first two seems accurate, then the last one is: > Allegra Ringo in Vice writes that "in other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice." Allegra essentially redefines SJW as meaningless, by claiming that such people don't actually exist - that the phrase is purely a dismissal of Social Justice. Problem is, people who use the term don't believe that, and while it can be used, disingenuously, or erroneously to dismiss Social-Justice, the unproven claim it makes about a person is what defines its formal meaning, and not whether that claim is accurate or not. As such, you can't say "this claim is never true, therefore this term means something different" - atheists still understand what "heaven" means, even if they don't believe it exists - this is how meaning and usage differ, even though there is a complicated relationship between the two. Now consider that "such people don't actually exist" is a claim or belief, well use of the phrase "SJW" implies the exact opposite, it requires they exist to be meaningful (well, not really, you can still talk about angels and unicorns abstractly, but in this case we are applying it as a label to a real person) so redefining the word is as unnecessary as an atheist redefining "god" - they can still talk about the term, but instead simply switch to the crux of the conversation: that they don't believe in the basis of the phrase. So by all means, ask for evidence a person accused of virtue signalling is being disingenuous, but don't gaslight phrase itself. As for the aspect of tone e.g. calling someone a "whiner" etc. It think in that case the insult "whine" comes from the fact that words like "complain" exist, meaning the accuser purposefully chose a more insulting word to use i.e. tone Perhaps there are less insulting phrases than "virtue signal" e.g. "disingenuous", but I'm not sure. I can't think of an equivalent to "SJW" (I think there should be one, it's becoming as meaningless as "racist"), but I think there is a greater context to consider; there are terms that are partisan, SJW has a right bias, "mansplain" has a left bias (and isn't obviously any different from "arrogant", except with the gendered implication that it applies to men). It seems to me impossible or unfair to police tone without doing it in a bipartisan way, but anyone trying to do so usually leans one way or the other, hence "tone-policing" usually ends up as "tone-of-other-policing". I think before we get to that stage we need to agree on what level we are discussing at, and what phrases, on both sides, are not useful to that level. And one thing is clear; public politics operates at a level way lower than we might want. I'd also mention, as a tangent, Trump lowered the tone of public political discourse, but it wasn't great before - if anything he disabused some of the notion that it ever was; I'd argue that he was the first politician to drop the pretence of high-quality public discourse unashamedly cheat and lie. But Trump didn't break anything, he just advanced things to their inevitable conclusion; It was divisive politics that put him in the WH in the first place, no surprise he now promotes it - removing Trump will slow the advance of divisive politics, but it won't stop growing, or even accelerating. In fact, it may be more accurate to describe Trump as phenomena resulting from high division in society, rather than as a cause of division - as such removing Trump without reducing division, or causes of division, will just be an exercise in waiting for the next Trump.

Chris2048 6y ago

> a bleeding heart ... who expresses, for example, sympathy with poor people or mentally-ill people. To someone without those sympathies, it will sound like the person is faking that emotion, .. since the person on the right doesn't share that emotion. You've essentially redefined that word/phrase to imply that anyone using it is unsympathetic, which is very convenient to anyone who finds themselves accused of being one. It reminds me of definitions of SJW at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior - the first two seems accurate, then the last one is: > Allegra Ringo in Vice writes that "in other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice." Allegra essentially redefines SJW as meaningless, by claiming that such people don't actually exist - that the phrase is purely a dismissal of Social Justice. Problem is, people who use the term don't believe that, and while it can be used, disingenuously, or erroneously to dismiss Social-Justice, the unproven claim it makes about a person is what defines its formal meaning, and not whether that claim is accurate or not. As such, you can't say "this claim is never true, therefore this term means something different" - atheists still understand what "heaven" means, even if they don't believe it exists - this is how meaning and usage differ, even though there is a complicated relationship between the two. Now consider that "such people don't actually exist" is a claim or belief, well use of the phrase "SJW" implies the exact opposite, it requires they exist to be meaningful (well, not really, you can still talk about angels and unicorns abstractly, but in this case we are applying it as a label to a real person) so redefining the word is as unnecessary as an atheist redefining "god" - they can still talk about the term, but instead simply switch to the crux of the conversation: that they don't believe in the basis of the phrase. So by all means, ask for evidence a person accused of virtue signalling is being disingenuous, but don't gaslight phrase itself. As for the aspect of tone e.g. calling someone a "whiner" etc. It think in that case the insult "whine" comes from the fact that words like "complain" exist, meaning the accuser purposefully chose a more insulting word to use i.e. tone Perhaps there are less insulting phrases than "virtue signal" e.g. "disingenuous", but I'm not sure. I can't think of an equivalent to "SJW" (I think there should be one, it's becoming as meaningless as "racist"), but I think there is a greater context to consider; there are terms that are partisan, SJW has a right bias, "mansplain" has a left bias (and isn't obviously any different from "arrogant", except with the gendered implication that it applies to men). It seems to me impossible or unfair to police tone without doing it in a bipartisan way, but anyone trying to do so usually leans one way or the other, hence "tone-policing" usually ends up as "tone-of-other-policing". I think before we get to that stage we need to agree on what level we are discussing at, and what phrases, on both sides, are not useful to that level. And one thing is clear; public politics operates at a level way lower than we might want. I'd also mention, as a tangent, Trump lowered the tone of public political discourse, but it wasn't great before - if anything he disabused some of the notion that it ever was; I'd argue that he was the first politician to drop the pretence of high-quality public discourse unashamedly cheat and lie. But Trump didn't break anything, he just advanced things to their inevitable conclusion; It was divisive politics that put him in the WH in the first place, no surprise he now promotes it - removing Trump will slow the advance of divisive politics, but it won't stop growing, or even accelerating. In fact, it may be more accurate to describe Trump as phenomena resulting from high division in society, rather than as a cause of division - as such removing Trump without reducing division, or causes of division, will just be an exercise in waiting for the next Trump.