My girlfriend before high school, had a friendship with 3 girls. Girl 1 claimed to be bi and later a lesbian but was straight and hung out with homophobic spoiled girls. Girl 2 claimed to be bi too and later an ally but then said she was actually homophobic and Christian. Girl 3 is extremely Christian, all 3 girls are Christian. She is anti-transition, defends Trump, and also wants to mass murder anti-Christians and abolish their religions or lack thereof.
None of these people seem like allies, they seem like virtue signalers.
virtue signalling has been around since forever. Pascal talked about it in the 16th century dude. the bible talks about it.
the phrase is not disingenuous. it’s about those for whom virtual is merely a signal, not an act. for those who preach, but don’t practice. for those whom virtue would have no meaning other than social recognition. it’s about ‘scoring good person points’. it’s the moral/political equivalent of buying a rigged-out Jeep and going on about how into off-roading you are when you use it as a commuter car. You are desperately trying to signal to others something that isn’t true about yourself.
it probably irks you because you’re guilty of it. you love to go around preaching to others how they should behave, but you don’t hold yourself to those standards. it’s not to shut down discourse, it’s to point out hypocrisy.
i am well versed it in. I live in Cambridge MA, where everyone has ‘black lives matter’ signs on their 3 million homes, who then systematical vote against any/all inclusion policies in education or housing or development in the community… all policies which systematically exclude anyone who isn’t a multi-millionaire from being part of the community and insuring that the city becomes ever more white/asian to the exclusion of all other races.
or a more quotidian version, people who incessantly post on the internet/social media about their ‘causes’ but themselves don’t actually donate or contribute or really care. they are just doing it for the likes. like the vast majority of proto-communists on lemmy who are waiting for the revolution so they can finally be the good communists they are in their heads… while living their lives day to day as unflinching capitalists. Marx also saw this, ‘false consciousness’. Same thing.
But god forbid any lemmite actually does something difficult like… read marx.
If you like to let your lexicon get invaded by tabloid writer’s sensationalist bullshit then a term like virtue signaling is right for you.
You applied faulty logic to a propaganda device to try and justify it in your head. You are wrong, so very wrong. But that is okay.
I see the feelings are strong in you without any facts or logical thoughts to back it up. This is because you are clearly operating in bad faith or are incapable of meaningful critical thought.
I suppose you could just be acting like a cynical asshole and not just a right wing troll. It is basically a horseshoe thing though, so it really doesn’t matter. Cheers!
or I’m none of that.
Why is it that you have to demonize me? do you ever ask yourself that? why is the concept of virtue signalling so politically loaded for you?
You were not acting like a cynical asshole? I am having a hard time believing you deny this. I have certainly been guilty of this in my life so it is not a big deal.
At any rate, that is not who you are. Is it? If not, then my apologies for implying you were acting that way.
The term Virtue Signaling is politically loaded rhetoric. It is a form of anti-protesting. Akin to those who say pointing out racism is actually racist. That people making statements are the problem instead of the actual problem. It shifts the blame and is a shitty propaganda technique.
all you want to hear is me admit that i’m wrong and your right. i’m bad, and your good.
does it occur to you that neither of those things is true? i am ultimately, nobody to you. why do you this compulsion to cast me as a villain to your heroic self? because i dared to say something you disagreed?
i mean, you just seem to understand the term as ‘anyone who says it is bad and conservative and bad’.
I don’t see it that way. but you dont’ really seem to care about anything other than pushing a political agenda here, hence your collapsing the term under the ‘propaganda’ monkier. As if what, your leftist/liberal beliefs aren’t also full of propaganda?
From where I stand it’s a useful tool of analysis of human behavior. one that extends far beyond politics. sorry if my interest in this tool is deeply upsetting to you, but that’s really a you issue, no? do you also find my use of a car to get to work offense and evil?
I made statements, you can choose to do whatever you want with them. Trying to simplify this into good and bad is definitely a failing on your part.
I have spent decades studying this stuff so my perspective will be informed and wildly different than yours. That is okay.
I was raised Republican, became a Democrat, and now I vote Independent based on policy not feelings. I am very aware how all sides think.
Everything is propaganda. The sooner you realize it the better off you are. Also every piece of propaganda has some truth to it. That is what makes it work.
You found a shitty stereotype that was created by a tabloid writer. I was just pointing that out for your sake. You are welcome to ignore this and continue using this loaded bullshit phrase all you want.
Ok, so your position is there is no truth or sincerity? I mean, at least your being consistent with yourself now, and given what you keep saying that does make total sense.
I mean, sure, yeah, we can’t really converse then. I believe in an objective reality, you don’t. Thus everything we communicate to each other is essentially pointless. I will say ‘this sandwich is good’ and you will see it as an act of propaganda. And actually, it makes total sense to me why you are saying what you are saying, because well, nothing has any meaning to you outside of it’s function as propaganda. At least, from where I stand.
And you keep insisting this term only exists based on some taboid writer, and I’ve been using it for years, well beforehand. I came across it 25 years ago as a freshman college student in 2001. But again, make sense because to you any objective reality doesn’t exist, because you’re going pure 1984 Orwell here, just replace ‘virtue signal’ with ‘war against eurasia’ i guess.