Isn’t charging someone with virtue signaling just another way to call them a phony? Perhaps more elegant but still at the heart of the matter. If I retreat from a psychological or physical threat rendered at me or another, would it be better and more honest to call me measured or just a coward. I’d prefer the former but the latter may well be true.Machiavelli’s words are very spot on relative to modern day politicians and Princes alike. Everyone sees who you appear to be but few really know who you are.Are your constituents better served by the facade?
In today’s world virtue signaling is claimed quite a bit with Corona safety measures. I see everyday at the gym, in spite of recent CDC updated guidance, members who will take several minutes to scrub every possible point of contact with equipment to save the next user from possible infection.Transmission of the virus from hard surfaces is now seen as extremely rare and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 50,000.So, are people who perform this ritual from one routine to the next virtue signaling, aka being a phony, or do the feel they are performing a valuable service to those who follow them. I agree with the writer that short of compelling evidence to the contrary, we should assume the latter.It would be a dark world in our heads indeed to interpret all such acts as artificial in the end.I suspect that those who make such unverified assertions in many ways see their own insincerity mirrored in their faces.
The effect of the deed, no. The doer of the deed, not bad, just hallow.On one hand, the motive could be based on the observed past behavior of the recipient and may be defensible based on this history. Short of that, I would call the accuser cynical and possibly troubled by his own phoniness.In judging others, the old adage that you don’t know what you don’t applies.
Isn’t charging someone with virtue signaling just another way to call them a phony? Perhaps more elegant but still at the heart of the matter. If I retreat from a psychological or physical threat rendered at me or another, would it be better and more honest to call me measured or just a coward. I’d prefer the former but the latter may well be true.Machiavelli’s words are very spot on relative to modern day politicians and Princes alike. Everyone sees who you appear to be but few really know who you are.Are your constituents better served by the facade?
In today’s world virtue signaling is claimed quite a bit with Corona safety measures. I see everyday at the gym, in spite of recent CDC updated guidance, members who will take several minutes to scrub every possible point of contact with equipment to save the next user from possible infection.Transmission of the virus from hard surfaces is now seen as extremely rare and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 50,000.So, are people who perform this ritual from one routine to the next virtue signaling, aka being a phony, or do the feel they are performing a valuable service to those who follow them. I agree with the writer that short of compelling evidence to the contrary, we should assume the latter.It would be a dark world in our heads indeed to interpret all such acts as artificial in the end.I suspect that those who make such unverified assertions in many ways see their own insincerity mirrored in their faces.
The two questions I pose are
Does a good deed for a selfish reason make the deed less good?
By calling a person’s motive into question say something about the accuser?
The effect of the deed, no. The doer of the deed, not bad, just hallow.On one hand, the motive could be based on the observed past behavior of the recipient and may be defensible based on this history. Short of that, I would call the accuser cynical and possibly troubled by his own phoniness.In judging others, the old adage that you don’t know what you don’t applies.