Let’s also not forget that Liberalism was originally reactionary, against the Monarchy, Aristocracy and Protectionism.
Probably because everyone in NA saw the eight minute video of George Floyd’s death on the news, and on the news, and on the news, and on the news. You seem to have a real axe to grind over this matter Ceisiwr.
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If participating in the same discussion as everyone else means I have said axe, then sure.
No. I mean you indicated that you think virtue signalling represents some type of real character flaw in a particular group of people whose politics you clearly stated you don’t like, “the left.” Great, you expressed yourself. Everyone got that, and it was politely conveyed back to you that everyone got that.
I do not believe this D&D is here to be used for divisive political discussion. So let us please have an end to this. Thanks.
I was referring to woke there, not virtue signalling and I said I think it came from a response to the self-righteousness many on the left have. Of course, self-righteousness can be found on the right two. I am speaking from my own experience here, rather than some kind of methodical study. I don’t call leftist politics I don’t like woke. I don’t even use that word anymore. Self-righteous though I do use, when I think it’s appropriate to do so.
I do not believe this D&D is here to be used for divisive political discussion. So let us please have an end to this. Thanks.
Different people holding different views is by its nature divisive, no? Unless by divisive you mean actively seeking to divide, which I don’t see happening here.
Yes Ceisiwr, we understand you think the left does a lot of virtue signalling, because they believe they’re woke and others are not. We completely understand exactly what you were saying.
Well, that’s not what I think. Do enough rounds of the political commentators on the right and you see plenty of virtue signalling there too.
The left and the right are both flawed, because worldly people are flawed.
Ok, so we agree that virtue signaling isn’t calling out hypocrisy, but not all here so agree. The OP specifically equates it with hypocrisy for instance.
Politics is orthogonal to the referent of virtue signaling that I have in mind. That is to say that performative acts of righteous anger that have no redeeming qualities can be found among persons and groups of every political persuasion or culture/tribe on earth.
For others, especially it seems on this thread, politics is very much at the heart of both their preferred referent of the label “virtue signaling” as well as apparently whether “virtue signaling” is to be thought of as good or not. This is not a debate I’m interested in in the slightest so I’ll leave others to it. 
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Is virtue signalling out of bad intentions still a good action in Buddhism?
Is virtue signalling in a situation where it would annoy people a skilful action in Buddhism?
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more, and I guess where virtue signalling could be wrong/harmful is when someone signals something without having the intention, information or skill to follow through.
Take the example Beth gave above of a teacher with a rainbow flag. The teacher is signaling their support for the LGBTQIA+ community, but have they done their homework? Do they actually know how to interact in a way that is supportive and doesn’t do harm? The same could be said with supporting other minority community. This is different from ‘hypocrisy’ in that the person is deluded about their level of ability to be skilful in the situation, rather than flat out saying one thing and doing another.
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I saw a teacher of elementary school learn children fish and stimulate those children who like fishing.
Apparantly she saw no problem in doing this. She very much delighted that so was able to put the children on this path of delight, and make them happy. In our society fishing for fun and sport is also accepted. I did fish too. I regret that. Poor animals. I was not even aware of the horror fishing is, when i fished.
I can forgive myself too. I am sure that moral needs to develop. It is never like this that when one obeys what is negotiated as good and bad, one is a moral person. Moral is really solely something individual.
But sensitivity must also grow, i am sure of that. One cannot expact that one is a moral person when one is not yet 50+ years of age.
True, and you probably hit the crux of inter-sectionality, because of the problem of representation.
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Yes, and what is virtue? If i publically support the LGBTQIA+ community, is that my virtue? And if i do not is that my vice?
This seems a very useful line of reflection for the sake of the OP discussion.
– I read the Tosi and Warmke (T&M) article that formed the basis of Levy’s counter-argument. (Happy to email to anyone; it’s behind a paywall but I can grant guest access through email links.)
Really, between the two articles I don’t see a vast difference in perspective. Even T&W state that there are circumstances when “grandstanding” (aka virtue signaling) is warranted as a kind of last resort. This is when Levy’s “higher order of evidence” comes into play: the assumption is that the greater the number of people that offer testimony to something does provide higher-order evidence and compels other people to consider a commitment to certain moral norms or actions that they may not have otherwise.
Another example to add to many that have been put on the table: Around here, the get-out-the-vote door-to-door canvassing effort is getting under swing. There are always volunteers that get involved for virtue signaling, I have to think, and it’s low-cost (to use Levy’s terminology – he didn’t invent it).
I can’t imagine any of them are turned away by party organizers because their intentions are mixed (likely unawares to them). In the upcoming November election over here, it’s thought that if 10% of the people who normally don’t vote actually vote, the Democrat will win. That’s where the door-to-door canvassing largely plays a role. (Moreover, downstream judges and school board members will also be elected who value diversity, intellectual curiosity, women’s control of their bodies, and gun control.)
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone who canvasses isn’t doing it for some kind of recognition within their tribe? Yes. But wouldn’t it be really great if the 10% end up voting because they can’t forget the canvasser who came knocking on their door and, well, they vote maybe only for that reason alone? In that situation, it’s almost like a kind of accountability has been introduced between the canvasser and the voter.
– T&W recognize that virtue signaling could serve as a gateway for some people who are curious or, even more, want to become virtuous human beings – but lack an apparent path. I feel like I came to Buddhist practice that way.
– Levy says:
…virtue signaling supports the deliberative function of public moral discourse.
Without such discourse, our ability as a collective to establish and maintain moral norms (that we all agree on) doesn’t stand a chance. Overpopulation, violence (with nuclear bomb potential), climate change, unmitigated AI… Perhaps these are the ones where toleration of virtue signaling really comes into play.
This forum is public discourse. Maybe D&D v2.0 can support video teleconferencing so that we aren’t limited to just written exchanges. 
Like I tell my spouse sometimes, I’m not at my best when I’m limited to [x]. I’d love to see and hear all of you at your best. Or at least have you see me at my best.
– The Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard writes, in his book:
Some people prefer to help others, even if they are not inclined to do so, because this effort is psychologically less costly for them than being prey to a feeling of guilt.
I’m not trying to introduce pop psychology into the thread, per se. It just seems to me that the Levy and T&M articles do not include this motivation as a possible intent for virtue signaling. I have to believe that some of the students caught up in the recent protests at elite universities here are acting from a mixed bag that screams “virtue signaling” but which could include this. I once read a coach for some professional sport say to a newspaper reporter “the waiting is harder than the doing”. Of course, as a practicing Buddhist I can relate to this through my own reflections on greed, hatred, and delusion. But I believe there’s a group dynamic at play as well when it comes to this. Especially when the moral vacuum seems dire.
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Your response reminds me the of the Buddhist tetralema of deeds, such as in MN57.
Dark deeds with dark results, bright deeds with bright results, dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results; and neither dark nor bright deeds with neither dark nor bright results, which lead to the ending of deeds.
Most of the time we are doing the third option.
And what are dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results?
It’s when someone makes both hurtful and pleasing choices by way of body, speech, and mind.
Having made these choices, they are reborn in a world that is both hurtful and pleasing,
where hurtful and pleasing contacts strike them.
Touched by both hurtful and pleasing contacts, they experience both hurtful and pleasing feelings that are a mixture of pleasure and pain—like humans, some gods, and some beings in the underworld.
This is how a being is born from a being.
For what you do brings about your rebirth,
and when you’re reborn contacts strike you.
This is why I say that sentient beings are heirs to their deeds.
These are called dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results.
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I agree that oftentimes what is really meant is hypocrisy. In the United States, and other western-english-speaking countries, it has also become a term used in political discussions asymmetrically. That is, if somebody accuses another person of “virtue signalling” you can be reasonably confident that the accuser is “right-wing” and being contemptuous of something “left-wing.”
Okay, but this is broad enough that I don’t think anybody disagrees. “Virtue signalling” by definition/connation is when this goes wrong. From Wikipedia:
" Virtue signalling is a pejorative neologism for the idea that an expression of a moral viewpoint is being done disingenuously, with the intent of communicating good character."
“Signalling virtue” certainly has a place in morality, people are not debating that. But the term “virtue signalling” refers to a specific corruption of that.
I think there is even a sutta which says this 
Again, virtue signaling is, as far as I am aware, a term used specifically to refer to those instances where the accuser believes it is on net doing more harm than good.
I think the point, rather, is that she thinks what she did does display virtue. (In the article you linked to she is quoted as saying it shows she “has what it takes to get things done.”) Not everybody agrees that killing is categorically wrong. You and I may disagree, but her intent is not to promote her own vice, it is to promote her own “virtue.”
Well, yes, linguistic battles get fought like this all the time by all sorts of groups.
Seriously? What percentage of people who use the term virtue signalling as a pejorative do so with the purpose of “undermining morality?” I would guess close to 0%. Of course, they probably have a different ethical system than you and I do, but they are not trying to “undermine morality,” and genuinely believing that this is their purpose is astonishing. Either you meant this hyperbolically or you have a pretty poor understanding of the minds of these people.
Yeah, I don’t think the intent is to undermine moral discourse. Maybe here is a good article to read. By all means, please criticise the alt-right, they should be criticized. But when you start saying things like, “these people have no morals whatsoever” you went off course somewhere.
Virtue signalling is used as a cynical expression to mean that a person does something only because they think it will get them acceptance with a certain in-group. Notably, this person has not deeply considered whether or not the thing they are doing is actually virtuous. In fact, the crux of the issue is that the accuser oftentimes considers the supposed “virtue” as being harmful, but in spite of its harm it propagates because it is morally fashionable.
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In one of his books, Peter Singer defended the view that it is better to reveal or show off our good deeds in order to encourage others to do the same. He argued against the older teachings that discouraged people from doing good in private as in: “do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing”. More generally, one could argue that to consider virtue-signalling to be good is inline with utilitarian thinking, which does not only reduce good and bad actions to the subsequent results of pleasure and pain, but holds quality hostage to quantity. The best good we can do is to become unrecognizable members of a universal melting bot - where “inclusivity” becomes key. This melting bot cannot achieve its aims and purposes at once, but has to go through various stages beginning with allocating members to their designated groups, then including these groups into a larger family of “humanity” which is the highest universal one can achieve. Any notion of going beyond good and evil has to be set aside, as possibly driven by an older and outdated mindset that is driven by allegories and myths that has no existence in this human world. Nature has to be predictable in order to be livable, where the ethos of both morality and sanity have to resemble this predictability. As such, accusing another of “virtue signalling” is denouncing virtue itself by delaying its eventual arrival at the human utopia that a utilitarian mindset believes in.
The first time i encountered the term “virtue signaling” was during the 2016 US presidential elections, where Trump was presented as “an outsider”, using the “establishment” only as a platform to get elected. His lack of filtration was taken by his supporters as a sign of refreshing honesty amongst the average politicians, who are trained in virtue signaling but lacking in real virtue. If we take it as the art of narration, virtue signalers are akin to reading a pre-written speech, conveying their preference for preparedness over authenticity, whereas those who do not use virtue signaling are more of improvisers, naturally gifted and function as “anomalies” in the system.
I think denouncing virtue signaling is a good strategy for managing expectations. If we take Trump as an example, he does not even pretend to virtuous, but his first term exceeded expectations considering how his opponents portrayed his upcoming tenure to be apocalyptic. On the other hand, Biden ranks high in predictability, and the state of the world during his current tenure speaks for itself.
Strangely, this lack of predictability can function as a safety valve in worldly affairs. When Putin was asked would the world be safer under Trump or Biden, he answered under Biden, as he is more predictable. This lack of predictability is taken into account in the political affairs between states.
Earlier I was going to post something but decided not to, but your post made me realize that I probably should. The message won’t be heard, but that’s fine.
I think everyone should see the documentary American Dharma by Errol Morris. Beyond being one of the best filmmakers in the US ever, he also, as he says in this interview, “I’ve made a career of chronicling various kinds of self-deception, people who imagine themselves one way, but in fact they could be wrong. In fact, they are wrong.”
His subject in American Dharma is Steve Bannon - the architect of “virtue-signalling.”
What I was going to say is that “virtue-signalling” was specifically targeted at and defined by Hillary Clinton. By the time she ran for election, Bannon and the bunch already had plenty of dirt on her that the public knew to be true and had already set the wheels in motion.
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Thank you for sharing the video. I will watch it when i have the time.
I do not rule out deceptions on both sides, but it happened that the actions of Hillary and her Husbands at that time gave credence to the notion of “virtue signaling”. When Trump brought women as “witnesses” before his debate with Hillary was a sad chapter in American politics.
I sat around at dinner with a bunch of gals from US, Israel, Pakistan and Canada, some of East Asian descent ,and the conversation came about to “if you don’t mind, who did you vote for in the US election.” US answer was Clinton, but we had big discussions about things.
Pakistan: The Benghazi attack was on Clinton’s watch
Canada: No feminist could in good conscience vote for her
Israel: If Trump moves the Embassy to Jerusalem, there will be war