If you frame changing vocabulary as a shibboleth that point of view is inevitable, but that doesn’t make it accurate. This is a view of other people on the same spectrum as accusing them of “virtue signaling”, and is equally worth ignoring.
Not only are accusations of "virtue signaling" generally a sign of a conversation not being worth my time, I'll even go a step further; I think there's a genuinely useful phenomenon where some takes are so common from people I consider to be trying to discuss in bad faith that someone not even being willing to pretend not to have them is a legitimately useful way for me to filter out conversations that wouldn't end up having any value for either side, and this honestly does seem to fit the meaning of "virtue signalling". If I'm tacitly asking for "virtue-signalling" by not being willing to discuss politics with, say, relatives who have binged too much Fox News over the past decade, then so be it.
I know its a bit of a tangent, but its wryly humorous to me that someone referring to something else as "virtue signalling" is, in itself, a way of signalling some specific "virtue" (an incredibly negative and gross one) wrt. the way they think about the world.
Its quite useful, means I can safely ignore any opinion they have on the topic at hand.
> Its quite useful, means I can safely ignore any opinion they have on the topic at hand.
Speaking of an incredibly negative and gross "virtue"—this growing trend of people actively seeking to identify members of an out group who they can safely ignore is disturbing.
Once upon a time we actually tried to understand even our opponents, if only so we could beat them in the debates. Now we're so confident that we're right, they're wrong, and right makes might that we don't feel the need to attempt to understand them even to debate them—we just throw meaningless insults at each other and win elections based on who can drum up the most fear of the "incredibly negative and gross" other.
The solution of course is to come up with a new word for "virtue signaling" that doesn't give people that repulsion reaction.
I have to say though, when I see people using popular buzzwords, it shows me they're not really thinking and are just LLM-like regurgitating what they've been exposed to.
> this growing trend of people actively seeking to identify members of an out group who they can safely ignore is disturbing
It depends, some people are radicals. For example, if you think climate change isn't real that's not even an opinion. That's just... not true.
Someone who's perception of reality and reality itself are so misaligned can't be understood. Because their position doesn't come from understanding, it comes from emotions. Typically fear of the unknown, hatred, or maybe they're just dumb (dumb is the least likely).
After a certain point, it crosses to the delusional. After a certain point, they're just crazy.
I don't listen to the man on the corner yelling about the bugs under my skin that signal to aliens. Because that's crazy.
Nor do I listen to "5G microchip in the vaccine!! Plandemic!!" type people. Because they're just crazy people.
The problem is, and I don't know exactly why, but that category of person is expanding. Rapidly. My own family has fallen victim to it. And now I can't ever reason with them because their minds are so forgone they're living in an alternate reality.
The phrase itself discredits the very idea of someone acting virtuously by implying any such thing is simply done to fulfill an ulterior motived. It is used with great frequency because it is a simple and easy way to discredit someone who says something you dislike.
The absurd part is you are acting like everyone who uses that phrase has casual access to the interior life of absolute strangers: if it isnt a myth and the only reason someone wouldn't point it out is politeness the it follows that you know their motivations.
Virtue signaling isn't the same thing as being virtuous.
For example, many thinks that saying "I have many black friends!" is just virtue signaling by someone not very virtuous, and that is often called out. The virtue there is to have those friends, ie not being racist about who you choose to be friends with, the signaling is that you say you have black friends.
See the difference? And I bet you think that someone saying "I have many black friends" is more about signaling than being a virtuous act in itself. Many people signal that way, words are cheap actions are not.
What I don't get is why nobody says "stop virtue signaling" to those people, because that is what they are doing. Virtue signaling is absolutely a real thing and people do it everywhere, regardless of political alignment etc.
The phrase doesn't discredit the idea of virtue. Virtue signalling captures a thing that has low cost (like saying one word instead of another) and limited actual virtue.
Of course, people can try to smear genuine virtue by calling it mere virtue signalling. Philanthropy might be called mere virtue signalling by some, even though it does materially benefit people. But I think most cases are more clear-cut.
Oddly, despite probably disagreeing with you on many things, I think you might be right here. Interacting with people with very different world views does tend to make maintaining a simple black-and-white world view a lot harder and bits of grey will start to contaminate it.
