The inescapable rise of moral superiority
thewalrus.caLoved the last paragraph, always good to end with ideas for positive action.
>As cathartic as venting one’s outrage can be in the moment, it’s clear that moral grandstanding accomplishes very little beyond the fleeting satisfaction that it brings. Shaming people doesn’t seem to change their behaviour, and invoking mass shooting victims in an argument about hamburgers doesn’t move the needle on gun control. Social change doesn’t come from posting but from purposeful collective action: organizing, voting, protesting. At worst, the catharsis of grandstanding deludes us into thinking that virtuous online posturing is a meaningful form of solidarity and not a fruitless, ego-driven impulse. Tosi and Warmke argue that the purpose of recognizing moral grandstanding isn’t to get other people to knock it off; it’s to stop doing it yourself.
> Social change doesn’t come from posting but from purposeful collective action
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism
Slacktivism is not going anywhere.
of course not, if it wanted to go somewhere, it would have to take action ;-)
> Social change doesn’t come from posting
I have to disagree with this. Change happens because people want change. And they want change because they have been convinced of its benefits. Posting plays a role here.
> Posting plays a role here.
Posting in sound bites?
I've read books that have influenced me. But tweets? Not really.
Depends on the kind of posting IMHO.
Contributing to a rational civil discussion? Maybe.
Flaming, downvoting, and “collectively bullying” someone with a different opinion to enforce an echo chamber? Not so much.
The latter just drives everyone who disagrees away so the likeminded can reinforce their beliefs, pat each other on the back, and feel good about themselves.
Through posting alone, the right-wing conspiracy movement (which QAnon is one extension of) has expanded from relative obscurity into a fairly mainstream base with millions of members worldwide over the course of only about 5 years, and has already captured in just the U.S. a number of congressional seats and at least one SCOTUS judge by the looks of it. The format has a rather persuasive appeal that (in my opinion) seems to be more effective at advancing intellectually dishonest positions and worldviews.
I was thinking about it from the perspective of changing people’s minds.
With right wing conspiracy movements, are they really converting anyone or just organising people who already lean in that direction and just need a rallying flag.
To go off on a tangent, I think a lot of people believe in conspiracy theories because they choose to. To quote Alan Moore,
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.”
I think we all do that to some extent, e.g. in relationships; see “positive illusions”.
I think the issue goes beyond moral grandstanding. If you read Hacker News, for example, you see plenty of technical grandstanding every day.
I think we humans are simply unprepared for interacting with random strangers online. Our monkey brains did not evolve for that. In most social situations, our opinions are tempered by knowing the other person, or at least being in the same room with them. It's rare that you would say the same thing face-to-face with another person that you would say to them online.
Online, it's often a show where you're playing to an audience, instead of having a one-on-one conversation with another person. You're not actually talking to the person you're talking about. The incentives are to act, to create drama.
> If you read Hacker News, for example, you see plenty of technical grandstanding every day.
Oh, you see plenty of moral grandstanding on non-technical articles, too. It's just as likely to be some strange over-analyzed and unrealistic niche belief system as it is a platform plank of either of the two major American political parties.
As expected for a place which attracts engineers and the like, because one of their failure modes is assuming that they can engineer the entire world. Every major social problem has a "rational" engineering wrong explanation, because all people (including them) are only ever quasi-rational beings.
> Online, it's often a show where you're playing to an audience
I think this is the most important part. It's not just online vs offline. Even how people converse in DMs differs from public postings (not as good as offline, but different than public online). Instead, many interactions are done with the intent to gather an audience that agrees with you, so you can beat down your opponent by what is essentially intimidation. Or at least make it fruitless for your opponent to even try to defend themselves.
I feel this often with peers and at my workplace. If there is something that I don't understand I try to come up with possible explanations. If it's about something that is frowned upon or unpopular then I often feel how people get defensive and think I want to justify the thing or expose them for not knowing something. I don't. I just want to understand and maybe get something helpful out of it, maybe learn something about others or myself in the process. But I feel I'm in a minority with this thinking and it's a great source for all kinds of misunderstandings. I guess we all have our blind spots, otherwise I could understand the persons that I described. Ultimately I think practicing compassion is key.
So if the uptake is "refrain from (non-productive) virtue signalling, especially where that takes the form of criticism or indignation directed at someone else", then considered as a first order comment and suggestion, that in general seems fine.
But:
1. One side of the culture wars really likes to temporarily put on a cloak of neutrality in a way that pretends that only its opposition is making a moral claim. This sort of "remove moral stances from casual conversation" position can similarly position itself as being neutral while actually being a weapon pointed in one direction.
2. If society as a whole is perpetrating some continual harm of some form, saying "don't interrupt our discussion about X to complain about it!" is itself perpetuating that harm, and is an expression of entitlement. If in the 1960s a white person in the south said "don't derail this conversation about hamburgers to rant about how we need to end segregation!" then they were part of the problem. Similarly today, I think it's totally appropriate to mention in that hamburger discussion that (a) beef really does have a large carbon footprint (b) the amazon really is being cut down for meat production for example.
3. We _do_ all form our worldviews in part based on what we see others expressing. No one emerges from a cave having worked out how they view everything from first principles free from the influence of the people around them. All of this public discourse does have an impact. And though large societal changes do also require organized action, they are of course also preceded by discussion, some of it uncomfortable or perceived as "disruptive" by some, which prepares society for that change.
> preceded by discussion, some of it uncomfortable or perceived as "disruptive" by some, which prepares society for that change.
Is yelling in social media sound bites "discussion" though?
Recently I blocked an internet rando on social media who was arguing with me and ridiculously compared himself with Martin Luther King, because he was being "disruptive". It's true that advocates for social change are often viewed as disruptive, but the converse is not true: just being disruptive doesn't make you an effective advocate for social change. MLK spoke and wrote at length, eloquently. He wasn't writing "dunk" replies and quote tweets.
Ok, I agree that disruption for the sake of disruption is distinct from disruption as a tactic towards some actual goal.
But also, MLK was part of a movement with a huge number of people, almost none of whom had his style. But the people who marched or sat at lunch counters or got beat up on bridges were still contributing something valuable in doing so even if they didn't write great letters from Birmingham jail or whatever.
That's the thing about social media dunks: you can't get beat up for them. They show no personal courage or commitment. Social media dunking is disorganized, unprofessional, and likely only seen by one's own followers, if anyone. Whereas the sit-ins were well-organized and designed to bring wider public attention: "The protesters had been encouraged to dress professionally, to sit quietly, and to occupy every other stool so that potential white sympathizers could join in." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement#Sit-ins,...
Randomly flailing about, acting like an online vigilante, is extremely unlikely to be effective.
Your clothes and shoes were made by children, your electronics inevitability become toxic e-waste, your food is unhealthy, environmentally unsustainable and picked by exploited labourers, your language is violence and microaggressions, you're probably descended from colonists and if you aren't, you're still benefiting from it's history. Am I missing anything? We can spend all day tearing each other down like crabs in a bucket, if we want to.
Personally, I've found that it's better to define myself by what I'm for, as opposed to what I'm against.
Just helps me to keep my head in a decent place, and helps to avoid the "putting a fire out with gasoline" thing that happens so often, with online communication.
> the term “pregnant people” is somehow degrading to women
She sneaked that one in though didn’t she.
Sneaked? How's it different from the other examples?
"Pregnant people" is degrading to women in exactly the same sense that "front hole" is degrading to women.
In all previous examples there’s a clear pattern where an initial subject matter evolves into a broader social or cultural issue. In the last example, this pattern is broken, and it instead simply presents a statement without the prior context or escalation. A disruption in argumentative flow, if you will.
It wouldn't be an article about virtue signaling without pulling a bit of your own.
I'd call it a dogwhistle.
What I'm about to say is probably debatable but I think those things are, if not entirely equivalent, at least two sides of the same coin.
People blamed organized religion for this kind of thing but it’s pretty clear theology not required. The spectrum of pepperpots to moral crusaders is quite present with no religion at all. Quite possibly worse than before.
At least your organized religions tended to have a nontrivial portion of their teachings about being generally nice to each other.
I've been noticing this a lot too. When I was younger in the earlier days of the internet, it always seemed like it was the religious ones who were judging everyone and demanding they accommodate their beliefs and moral outrages. Nowadays, there is a new crowd that doesn't even go to church but is somehow worse. It's the new religion
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." – James 4:6, 1Peter 5:5, and many such instances throughout the bible.
Awhile back someone* here recommended the book "Days of Rage"* about US domestic terrorism/bombings in the late 60s and 70s. Weather Underground and their ilk were entirely a bunch of morally smug bastards fuelled by exactly this sentiment. It is terrifying to see the parallels between today's trends and things literally blowing up in the 70s.
*Thank you. Apologies for not remembering whom. Excellent read. Eye-opening as someone educated in 90s public schools.
*https://www.amazon.com/Days-Rage-Underground-Forgotten-Revol...
I enjoyed this article for the most part until it got to the "LGBTQ2S+" bit and then I just couldn't escape the fact that the author seems unwilling to confront the obvious -
The gluing together of all of these groups under one banner is exactly an attempt to use moral superiority to frame an argument - it removes the ability to actually discuss each case.
/"(This is a shame, because the best way to prepare a burger is a topic worthy of introspection.)"/
The answer, of course, is to stop eating meat because the factory farm industry is morally indefensible. (he said with some trace of irony, "expressing [...] dismay at the vast, cruel machinations of society.")
> Why does every online discussion terminate in ethical grandstanding?
I understand the use of "every" is hyperbole, but that's not the only way online discussions terminate.
Sometimes they end in rational debate where the conflict is a matter of epistemology rather than morality.
This has become so ridiculous that I sometimes scroll through reels just to witness this happening in real time. Is that a video with a joke about some problem in the country? There you go, 27 comments of people cursing and offending the creator because the real life isn’t exactly the way he/she portrayed it (which is, as a funny video should be, exaggerated) or creating drama for something else entirely that has nothing to do with the video. Then someone will eventually make an offensive comment and create an order of magnitude more hateful comments until shortly it becomes people insulting each other.
You see this in all social networks where people with no common ground eventually cross each other. It feels like everything (even mundane routine stuff) will eventually reach someone who’s offended by that action alone.
In fact I feel like this is what killed Facebook and people who check Twitter replies admit they always leave the app feeling angry. At least with TikTok and Reels the comments are hidden by default, so you have to make an explicit action to see the angry comments yelling at each other.
Reddit doesn’t seem to have that problem except in the popular subreddits because the smaller communities settle for an opinion and downvote dissidents.
Having the right opinion as a form of social status.
Wealthy urban men and women do that all the time.
While they're working their employees to the bone, refusing raises, and pocketing all the profits to purchase more real estate and nicer cars, or to bribe people at the private school they send their kids to, they whitewash their actions by pretending they care about feminism, LGBTQ+ people, white privilege, and/or the environment.
The Rural crowd has a different form of virtue signaling but the richest among them are also hypocrites in their own way. Usually via saying they're Christian, going to church, and then doing nothing Christian in their day to day life.
They do care about those -isms, as those divide the worker folk and keep those from uniting and demanding more.
I'm surprised it's still politically correct to use words "right" and "left".
> we often raise issues of justice and equity not to advance meaningful social causes but to generate positive attention for ourselves by denigrating others.
It's hard to differentiate between someone pretending to be morally outraged or offended and someone who genuinely is. If one really likes to get attention, and light "fires" around them, there is no real downside to pretending to be deeply offended or morally outraged. Who is going to prove it wrong? But look at all excitement and fireworks it can cause.
As someone who spends more time than they should grandstanding on the internet, I understand why people do it. What I don't understand is why people are so keen to eat that up, especially when it comes to politicians. Doesn't it bother people that the top 600 people in the most powerful country in the world are wasting their time delivering hot takes? I find it difficult to blame the politicians themselves because they're doing what their constituents want them to do.