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All Voting is Virtue Signaling
“Virtue Signaling” seems to be the newest insult fad. Everyone is looking to dismiss those they disagree with as simply virtue signaling while their tribe is the epitome of pragmatic sensibility.
#NeverTrumpers are signalling their virtue that Trump and Hillary are so beyond the pale that neither of them deserve their vote. Meanwhile, #ReluctantTrumpers are signalling their virtue that they can swallow their pride and do what they believe is best for the country. #Trumpers are signalling their virtue that everyone else can take a hike: They aren’t going to feel guilty for what they believe.
By any sane metric, voting is a colossal waste of time. You’re more likely to win the lottery than change the outcome of a presidential election. You can say that, if everyone thought like that, that you’d then stand a much stronger likelihood of affecting the election, but — when it comes down to you personally standing in the booth — your act will almost certainly make no difference to the final outcome.
Most of life is signaling. Even graduating from college is mostly signaling your intelligence as well as your ability to commit and follow through, all things employers value more than your grade in English Lit. If no one signaled, we couldn’t communicate real information and society would come to a halt. If no one signaled their perceived virtue, actual virtue could never propagate.
I’m sure you could even argue that I am virtue signaling in this post, but that’s okay! That something contains virtue signaling neither makes it wrong, nor makes it unworthy of being said.
Published in Politics
Let’s not even talk about first dates. ;)
I think you are stretching the term way to far. VS means showing others I am in the right group. Voting is an attempt to change the outcome. While one vote has little effect, those effects clearly add up. My $1 to Project Eliminate might not stop infant tetneus on its own, but the dollars add up and mean something.
VS is posting a hashtag and then doing nothing.
The OP conflates signaling and virtue signaling. True that humans engage in many kinds of signaling. But it is not all virtue signaling. This term has a specific meaning and does not apply to all the examples in the OP.
Maybe I conflate the two things because I’m seeing people on Ricochet conflate them.
It’s also probably not that binary. A celebrity’s tweet may be virtue signaling to her peers and to higher rank individuals and an attempt to assert superior status and influence the thinking and/or behavior of lower status individuals.
I hope that’s true.
If we’ve reached a point where holding any position, feeling good about doing so, thinking that it’s right, and then saying so, is ‘virtue-signaling’ (which is a bad thing, no?), then things have come to a pretty pass.
I, for one, think accusing someone of ‘virtue-signaling’ is often the first step on an path to accusing him of ‘bad faith.’ Virtue-signaling always implies, ‘I see what you say, but I know what you are really thinking’). Never a good start to a civil conversation, IMHO.
Accusations of virtue signaling is essentially accusing person of bad faith, i.e. making a declarative a position based on how one wants to be perceived rather the position (or action) one would take in the absence of declaring a position publicly.
Good minds think alike?
That last comment was the definition of virtue signaling.
Game theory lesson #3: individuals and groups belong to different orders of decision-making. A group doesn’t make a decision like an individual does, and an individual doesn’t decide like a group. That’s why the Prisoner’s Dilemma is a dilemma; it leads to a group-inferior outcome, even though every individual acted as best they could.
Yes, an individual’s vote will not decide the group as it would for the individual. That’s because group decision-making is different.
As @bryangstephens said above, if you do happen to treat a group vote as if it were an individual decision, then you’d be signalling what group you belong to.
The act of voting is not virtue signalling.
Perhaps what Mike is referring to is the act of talking about one’s vote.
Or, as dear old Mum used to say, fools seldom differ?
LOL!
This feels like it should be a 10,000 word essay on Slate Star Codex (and I would read it all). I suppose the difference between virtue signalling and being virtuous is the difference between wanting to be a good person and wanting to be seen as being a good person.
I try not to fault a person for failing to live up to their own stated morals. We are all human. What is insufferable are those who use their morals as a club while not even attempting to live up to the standards themselves (see Pharisees). Or worse, some will explain away their bad behavior because it was for a good cause/the offended party deserved it (see slavery or radical SJWs).
Considering we speak in a relatively closed community at Ricochet, we can give each other the benefit of the doubt that we really are trying to be the people we project. Now excuse me while I go back to my custom furniture making I send to natural disaster victims in 3rd world nations while sipping free-trade coffee and listening to a Dostoevsky audio book. (Okay, okay, playing video games, drinking Dr. Pepper, and listening to Pitbull.)
Two wrongs don’t make a right. If others are conflating two distinct concepts, you’re not helping by aiding and abetting in the confusion. All human communication can be dubbed signaling. Virtue signaling has a specific meaning. I’ll take this one:
It is related to the concept of slacktivism. In both cases, the perpetrator is seeking to improve his image without taking action. It is seen that this bears no resemblance to graduating from college or voting. The utility of voting in terms of game theory or other considerations is an interesting topic in its own right but outside the scope of this discussion.
While it’s always risky to impute motives to others, it is also quite possible that an individual is engaging in an activity for the sole or principal purpose of self-aggrandizement. The accusation may be considered rude or unjustified, or it may be right on target. Slacktivism is a prima facie form of virtue signaling. It’s possible that the slacktivist intends to follow through with action, but that’s not the way to bet.
I liked the sound of the title I used better, but mostly, yes.
I’m sorry you feel that way. At least it sparked this conversation in the comments. Thanks for pointing it out.
#NeverVirtueSignal
There are many ways to spark a conversation. Not all ways are equally useful. For example, Mr. Trump has sparked many conversations on Ricochet and throughout the land.
The OP could have sparked a better conversation about virtue signaling by pointing out the confusion, preferably with examples, rather than engaging in it. Frankly, I have not noticed the use of the term in the way you suggest.
I get the point of the post, but I think it misses the point of the insult. Virtue Signalling is, in my mind, a substitute for actual virtue. One signals virtue rather than actually engaging in virtue.
For example, treating others as you wish to be treated without regard to race, color, religion, national origin (etc.) is virtue.
Virtue Signalling is loudly denouncing racism, or Islamophobia but engaging in soft bigotry and animosity toward groups who are unfashionable.
I appreciate the OP. Regardless of whether the assertion is correct that all voting is virtue signaling, what is undeniably true is that accusations of virtue-signaling have proliferated on Ricochet. These accusations, as I see it, are often used instead of arguments.
“I think Hillary is much worse than Trump.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You are virtue-signaling.”
I’ve had half a dozen conversations that went just like that.
As a Reluctant Trump voter, I certainly don’t see voting for Trump as a virtuous act. I see it as embracing the cross in this tragic-comedy known as “life.” Suffer and die, baby. Until then, pray for mercy and do the best you can in a fallen world.
But is that not what often happens here, when someone essentially makes the argument, “I’m a better Ricochetian that you because I’m voting-for/not-voting-for X”?
We are all part of a social group, the Ricochet membership, within which social group are various cliques, and yes it is possible to jockey for status within and between cliques.
The Rabble Alliance promotes its Rabble-Alliance-ness, the reluctant Trumpers promote their reluctance, and the #NeverTrumps their #Never-ness. All are expressing or promoting a viewpoint especially valued within some social group.
Ahh… not really. http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/i-invented-virtue-signalling-now-its-taking-over-the-world/
“One of the crucial aspects of virtue signalling is that it does not require actually doing anything virtuous. It does not involve delivering lunches to elderly neighbours or staying together with a spouse for the sake of the children. It takes no effort or sacrifice at all.”
Each party listed would disagree about the nature of their vote or non-vote being virtuous which is defined as a standard of moral behavior.
ADJECTIVE
No one would assign a vote for either Trump or Clinton as having a high moral standard. A non-vote is more convincing.
… and embracing the cross is not a virtuous act?
I think I know what you mean, and I don’t think for a minute you’re being smug or smarmy by calling it “embracing the cross” or saying that an act of embracing the cross is not virtuous, just another tragicomic absurdity. But those with less reason than you have had (and you have had ample reason) to develop a keen sense of the absurd could wonder at such a description :-)
This is where I also think the OP was trying to go – i.e. there has been a lot of accusations of virtue signaling on Ricochet. Rather than trying to make virtue signaling less bad, I would rather push back against the accusation. Nobody at Ricochet is trumpeting* their #NeverTrump status to signal their virtue. Only other Ricochetti care about what is posted at Ricochet, i.e. we are not trying to impress our peers, we are trying to convince our peers of our way of thinking about the situation. The same would go for the pro-Trump, and reluctant Trump crowd. They are trying to convince their peers of their way of thinking.
*(pun noticed, not intended)
You forgot a group, and that group isn’t signaling virtue but sending a message to fellow voters that our values are not to be ignored and our vote should not be taken for granted if they want to win. They say we are supporting Hillary, that Hillary would be worse, that we will be blamed if we don’t vote. What better year to send home the shocking realization that we are a force to be listened to than when they most fear a loss. And if they don’t get it before November, then let them feel the bitter outcome of rejecting us for the next four years. Nothing else has gotten their attention, not even 8 years of Obama. If anything, they have gotten worse.
Hey, we agree on something! Isn’t that the point of (especially political) conversation? To try to persuade?
In general, I agree with Mike that status is a big driver of human behavior. The act of voting is really outside the realm of status-seeking, though, because it’s a private act done in the secrecy of the voting booth.
What a miserable outlook.