Virtue signalling vs. Vice signalling
welcome to the video today i will be discussing a dangerous phenomenon called virtue signaling it's getting way out of hand i guess this top i'm wearing is an example of virtue signaling i'm appeasing the leftist hyper woke snowflaking sjw feminist cultural marxist bleeding heart poses by signaling that being gay is fire look at this dog virtue signaling he's licking the cat trying to appear all virtuous really all he wants is to ha see that see that yeah he was pretending to be virtuous when really all he wanted was to eat that my name is tara mooney and this is the only channel on youtube where all videos are written and produced by a cow she couldn't be in the video today because she's at a spa because girl you deserve it if you like and subscribe she might appear in the next one oh and fun fact funnily enough wouldn't you like to know as it would happen today's video is sponsored by expressvpn sending data over an unencrypted internet connection is like leaving a sexy voicemail on 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the homage vice pays to virtue when you hear the phrase virtue signaling what comes to mind is it celebrities wearing social justice slogans is it girl boss girl power you go girl advertising is it company's rainbow firing everything during pride month a maga hat or putting a french flag filter over your facebook profile photo after a terrorist attack in paris wow that gesture was particularly hollow it wasn't necessarily a bad thing to do just completely pointless facebook's weird a wise friend of mine once said that facebook is the florida of social media and yes i agree and mark zuckerberg should be on trial for crimes against humanity if you don't know what i'm talking about make sure to listen to this podcast about how facebook allegedly enabled not one but multiple sides no i'm not joking anyways if we take the literal meaning of the phrase virtue signaling being to signal one's moral values then what's the problem we do it all the time it's a form of communication well it's come to mean something else entirely it gets even more complicated by the fact that it has several different meanings the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue an attempt to show other people that you are a good person for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them behavior that is aimed at demonstrating one's own enlightened attitudes a sharing of one's point of view on a social or political issue often on social media in order to garner praise or acknowledgement of one's righteousness from others who share the point of view or to passively rebuke those who do not verching virtue signaling the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue anyone who says they aren't attracted to 18 year olds is verching hard okay we'll just put a pin in that one anyways the point is is that the meaning varies and it's unclear who exactly invented it james bartholomew director of the museum of communist terror and writer for the spectator claims he invented it but that is not true the phrase was used by scholars in as early as 2010 and even earlier albeit in direct usage can be found in david foster wallace's essay tense present published in harper's magazine in 2001. pce politically correct english functions primarily to signal and congratulate certain virtues in the speaker in fairness i'm neither a journalist nor a scholar so it's possible that bartholomew came up with the phrase all on his own and didn't realize that others had come up with it before him and despite being a journalist at the spectator with all the resources he didn't find that out even though a goon with a mullet did with just a quick google search he really wants you to know that he invented it no one else especially not libby pervs since april i have watched with pleasure and then incredulity how the phrase has leapt from appearing in a single article into the everyday language of political discourse one of the first journalists to pick up on the phrase was liz jones in the mail on sunday on the 3rd of may not long after libby pervs used it in the times the 11th of may janan ganesh in the financial times 20th of july wrote about labour party leaders for whom europeanism is just a virtue signaling gesture like wearing a charity ribbon two days later hello issues in the new statement saying a lot of what happens on facebook as with twitter is virtue signaling showing off how went on you are this month use of the phrase has gone through the roof appearing in the newspapers on a daily basis it has been deployed by nickelodeon inspector block and turn your oil magazine james downpour and white parts ironing students in the glasgow house memphis valkyrie independence and house of heat in the daily telegraph nikki campbell the best presidential radio 5 live tweeted through 102 000 followers 30 september there was much virtue singing going on a moment a search on the guardian website for the contributors there have used 241 times good grief it is either paid in west ham line it is slightly frustrating that some people have credited libby perths with creating the phrase unlike liz jones she did not mention where it came from but i forgive her i am a fan of hers and the way she presents midweek on radio 4. we were contemporaries at oxford and i'll never forget seeing her walking in front of me wearing hot pants that sort of thing creates a special bond the thing that's so funny about this is that he did popularize the term he just didn't invent it it's fine james you don't need to lie you okay that being said bartholomew did popularize the term and made it mean what it has come to mean today want to be virtuous saying the right things violently on twitter is much easier than real kindness saying things violently on twitter no one actually has to do anything virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs there was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things that sounds hard much more convenient to achieve virtue by expressing hatred of those who think the health service could be improved by introducing competition yes because thinking necessities like healthcare should be privatized isn't a position worthy of hatred it's not like that leads to people dying economic darwinism is good actually twitter lends itself very well to virtue signaling since it is much easier to express anger and scorn in 140 characters than to make a reasoned argument ah yes twitter the social media side that is designed so that you can't make nuanced arguments and has an algorithm that pushes the most inflammatory content but yes if people summarize their political views on twitter then they must do absolutely nothing else than tweet it's not like they have lives well i guess there are some people that live on twitter but not the average person anyways this reflects what this phrase has come to mean virtue signaling relates to older idioms like do as i say not as i do all talk no action talk the talk and walk the walk nowadays it's primarily used as a pejorative to describe someone performing virtue as opposed to actually being virtuous like performative activism and this is a legit thing especially corporate virtue signaling think rainbow washing which is a term used to describe how corporations spray everything rainbow during pride month whilst not walking the walk or in some cases actively harming lgbt rights interestingly philosophers have argued that when people use the term virtue signaling what they're actually saying is moral grandstanding so to grandstand is to use moral talk for personal gain regardless of what name you give it this behavior poses a host of issues it leads to outrage fatigue people are so tired of everything being important that nothing is important now and it can lead to people making increasingly strong claims to outdo each other like a moral arms race another consequence of grandstanding is that people stop taking moral conversations seriously like how gaslighting has been overused to the point that it's lost its meaning that being said i have a lot of issues with the phrase virtue signaling in its current form similarly to political correctness the right have co-opted and overused virtue signaling to the point of meaninglessness it's regularly used as an ad hominem attack towards any utterance of leftists or even liberal values i joked at the beginning of the video that my gay t-shirt would be called virtue signaling but honestly i wouldn't be surprised you know what we're celebrating today mother's day and i am so thankful to have a mother like mine who supports me through all my craziness and loves on me and buys me chips ahoy cookies chewy the original everything under the sun my mom knows i love my cookies so get those cookies a couple of years ago drag queen vanessa vanjie mateo did a mother's day ad for chips ahoy a cookie brand so you might be asking what's political about this well nothing she doesn't tell you who to vote for or anything she just talks about cookies uh and then it just pisses off the right because we're like please get your politics out of stuff i obviously said thank you for helping me narrow down my cookie preference no more trips to hoya for me top comment which is good it's just very obviously very controversial it's telling that the people upset by this are politicizing it don't get me wrong corporations are very guilty of using social issues to sell stuff but this is not an example of that it's just showing a drag queen existing because rupaul's drag race is one of the most watched reality tv shows in the world obviously very controversial how do people find the energy virtue signaling has become a replacement for champagne socialist which basically describes someone who is middle or upper class but has socialist values or at least proclaims to if someone states a policy position their opponent focuses on the perceived hypocrisy rather than the argument itself ding ad the reason why these phrases are slimy slithery and sludgy is that they purport to be the counters in rational argument but dismiss oppose arguments without engaging with them they rely on destroying the credibility of the argument by insinuating the personal unreliability of the person who makes the argument your opponents are driven by emotion and not by reason by the desire for popularity and not for truth by the search for advantage and not for truth or integrity you on the other hand are the stern representative of pure reason hard love and disinterested judgment it's like when people say facts don't care about your feelings but they have no interest in actually finding the facts themselves it's become an ad hominem weapon and assumes when someone makes usually a left-leaning moral or political argument it's automatically hypocritical and self-aggrandizing and it stigmatizes empathy i've choked on tears while watching patients say goodbye to their loved ones via an ipad another day another virtue signal emotion might not be an argument but that doesn't mean you can't feel emotions about the argument you're making unsurprisingly neologisms like this stifle productive discussion and thus causes a devaluation of the social currency of moral talk so here's an older example radical sheik which was a term coined by journalist tom wolf in his 1970 essay radical sheik that party at lennie's to describe the promotion of radical political causes by celebrities and elites the term is still used sometimes to describe people who describe themselves to have socialist values whilst living upper class lifestyles on 14th of january 1970 leonard bernstein west side story composer hosted a gathering along with his wife felicia in their apartment in manhattan's upper east side in attendance were some of the wealthiest folk of the new york arts world as well as several members of the black panther party wolff was very critical of this gathering arguing that they were endorsing leftist radicalism to a sage white guilt and garner prestige i wasn't at the party so i can't say for sure what was going on there but it was reported that don cox spokesperson for the black panther party was trying to win support for the cause panther 21 a group charged with conspiracy to attack police and bomb the brooklyn botanical gardens a year later they were acquitted so what did don cox have to say about this gathering that night we managed to collect a decent sum to help towards bail money for the new york 21 but it was writer tom wolf who profited most from the evening he wrote a lengthy article about the affair for new york magazine and then later turned it into a book i wonder how much he made off all that i never liked leeches and sneaks he had snuck in with a tape recorder and recorded the whole evening so he could profit from the repression of the panthers and mock our efforts to raise funds to free people who were subsequently found to be innocent which we knew was the case all along as this layer of american society began to give us support the reaction from the authorities was immediate and fierce they launched a national campaign of slander and intimidation against what they following tim wolfe called radical chic many of our supporters from that class were intimidated and retreated and the rest of the evenings we had plans similar to the bernstein affair were canceled i had a secret meeting with felicia bernstein and she told me of the misery she and leonard had endured since the night of the gathering they had been receiving constant hate mail and phone calls including threats to their lives she wanted to know if there was anything i could do to help i could think of nothing other than to reiterate my belief that all people should stand up and defend what they believe otherwise fascism has fertile ground in which to grow well that's pretty damning listen i have no loyalty to the bernstein's i'm not saying they were saints maybe they were just posers and they didn't actually care about panther 21 but if you're going to comment on the authenticity of their relationship with the black panthers perhaps ask members of the black panthers just an idea entitled radical chic wolf's scathing satirical portrayal of the event criticized bernstein's passion for civil rights as disingenuous racial tourism but many objected to his mockery of african-american vernacular in his references to guest chambers one member of the black panthers infamously called him a dirty blatant lying racist dog what's with this culture of apathy as if it's better to do nothing than to potentially do something imperfectly i've come across this so much and was admittedly guilty of this in the past take for instance taxing the rich when middle class people say let's tax the rich more people will respond oh well that means you'll be taxed more oh look at you you claim to care about poor people when you have an iphone you're such a hypocrite i'm better because i don't even try to help the poor speaking of let's get into vice signaling my spice baby so hopefully you've learned by now that people of all political associations are capable of and guilty of virtue signaling liberals do it by posting black squares on instagram and clogging up the black lives matter hashtag and conservatives do it by holding bibles whilst they call gays abominable but what if you don't even want to pretend to be good what if you're in a circle where it's cool to be an [ __ ] that's where vice signaling comes in handy it was coined by journalist and historian david m perry i really think my concept of vice signaling is such an important tool for understanding modern conservative culture there are so many things for which they espouse value that they do not care about other than getting rid of it would make someone they don't like feel good they know something is bad and they talk about how much they like it because they hope it might hurt someone conservatives also virtue signal all the time that's a slightly different phenomenon back to voice signaling here's an example masks masks have been branded by some as a form of virtue signaling i disagree with that assertion because masks are more than mere symbols they are tools for public health but i would say that the performative refusal to wear masks is a form of vice signaling right-wing pundits don't mention 1984 challenge masks are censorship people you know what else are seat belts buses are the land of the free what makes for effective vice signaling it must present a clear distinction between a dissident and principled in group and a dominant and corrupt outgroup we all like to feel counter cultural sometimes like we're sticking it to the elites the establishment the man but anti-masters anti-vaxxers coveted truthers are obviously doing more than perpetuating the culture wars vice signaling to say hey i'm such a rebel is all fun and games until you die so to me this isn't even funny it's just sad actually this one is i know that wasn't their intention but the way it's laid out looks like they're saying no to saving the children which they are by opposing vaccines but not in the way they intended another common one is when transphobes go out of their way to misgender trans people you know the clip of ben shabibo where he correctly genders laverne cox because she's a woman but then walks it back by calling her a man because he's got a stale message because then your audience might think that trans people deserve common decency now i did a fair bit of dunking on the spectator earlier and i want to be fair i don't want to be a big old meanie to the british media so i found a better article of theirs the tories are the masters of vice signaling i'm listening if you want to get on in right-wing politics it is essential you master the art of vice signaling you must show you are tough hard-headed a dealer in uncomfortable truths and above all that you live in the real world as if any of us had the option of living anywhere else facts don't care about your feelings baby vice signaling is as vain and self-aggrandizing as virtue signaling is since they came to power in 2010 the tories have made a point of cracking down on benefits of the poor only by imposing the toughest sanctions could the feckless and the free be persuaded to stop living on handouts and find a job the fact that most poverty is concentrated in families where the adults have low wage jobs was glossed over a five-year study by york university concluded that sanctions had failed as i mentioned earlier there's this notion that ruthlessness and a lack of compassion automatically means rationality certain politicians and pundits will be as callous as possible in order to appeal to the i just say it how it is crowd and then wonder why they stopped getting invited to family gatherings and i don't think this is just a conservative thing necessarily but i would argue that liberals and the left are more likely to be guilty of virtue signaling than vice signaling reason being because people on that side of the aisle tend to value or at least claim to value equality welfare you know the drill therefore liberal politicians and i say liberal rather than leftists because there aren't really many leftist politicians will try to appeal to these values because the tough bad cop approach wouldn't work on them so pretending to care about social issues works instead anyways in conclusion virtue signaling by its current definition is annoying voice signaling is also annoying but can also be dangerous wear your seat belts to end on a high note let's look at today's subscription pet shout out this is nacho from mexico and when he gets scolded not my words his grandma calls him ignatio he's a mini i can't pronounce that he enjoys teasing other dogs in the park because he's so small and fast and he has a big brother called dobby i love them both with all my heart let's give them a round of applause if you liked this video make sure to give it a like because one like equals one seat belt for one child on a school bus because for some reason so many of them still don't have seat belts and i've got some bad news for you you know how when you subscribe you become a little subscription and when you become a little subscription i will keep you underneath my pillow in my room with the rest of my little subscriptions i've run out of room under my pillow you're all suffocating so i must stop sorry about that anyways thank you for watching and thank you to expressvpn for sponsoring this video make sure to check them out at expressvpn.com
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2021-09-28 06:16
