virtue signaling – Sheila Kennedy

A few days ago, a commenter dismissed the recent Women’s Strike as “useless virtue signaling.” That contemptuous comment prompted me to consider both the attitude prompting someone to post that condescending taunt as well as the definition and effect of virtue signaling.

I’m at a loss about the attitude, but I have some very definite opinions about what does–and does not–constitute behavior intended to convey one’s “virtue.”

I first encountered the phrase “virtue signaling” several years ago, when I purchased my first Prius, and a colleague–who, I hasten to say, approved of the purchase and who worries about climate change– told me that Toyota depended upon virtue signaling as a marketing tool. Making people feel virtuous for reducing their use of fossil fuel helped them sell their cars. It’s all about the bottom line, baby!

I understood his point; after all, people have been purchasing cars to “send a message” for generations. Until recently, that message had little to do with virtue or the environment–it was more along the lines of keeping up with the Joneses (or letting them know you could afford that Cadillac…)

Wikipedia’s entry on the term distinguishes between virtue signaling that is what we sometimes call “humble bragging” and the other motivations for– and effects of– communicative behaviors. The entry also included the following, very interesting, observation:

Linguist David Shariatmadari argued in The Guardian that the very act of accusing someone of virtue signalling is an act of virtue signaling in itself. The Conversation‘s Karen Stollznow said that the term is often used as “a sneering insult by those on the right against progressives to dismiss their statements.” Zoe Williams, also writing for The Guardian, suggested the phrase was the “sequel insult to champagne socialist“.

The Wikipedia article also suggested that the term is most commonly applied to online expression rather than in-person behaviors and activities.

The dismissal of the Women’s Strike (and presumably the Women’s March that occurred after Trump’s election) as useless “virtue signaling” struck me as not only patronizing but entirely wrong. It utterly misses the point of civic demonstrations, which are an important–and effective– element of social movements and social change.

The first and most immediate effect of a successful demonstration–a strike, a march, or other public display–is communication. Participation in a protest or other public display does two things: first, it tells other people that their concerns are broadly shared, that they are not alone; and second, it sends a message to those who are in a position to correct the problem that generated the event.

When a segment of the population is upset about something–racism, homophobia, misogyny, failure to fix potholes, whatever–concerted public actions that serve to tell individuals that they aren’t alone, aren’t the only people with that particular concern–are extremely important. (If you hold a demonstration and no one comes, that’s an important message too.) Brooding alone about problem X leads to feelings of powerlessness; joining with others who share your concern or anger strengthens your resolve to do something about it.

It also facilitates contact with others who agree with you, making other action more likely.

In states unlike Indiana, where the existence of referenda or the absence of gerrymandering means that legislators actually have to respond to constituent concerns, demonstrations and other public actions alert those in office to matters requiring their remedial action.

It’s true that few of these public protests get prompt positive results.

But even when strikes or marches or other displays of public concern fail to produce immediate results, over time, those expressions of opinion can and do change the culture. Little by little, they produce social change. Where would the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement or the women’s movement be today without the years of “virtue signaling” that John Lewis aptly called “good trouble”?

In any effort to effect social change, there will be good-faith arguments among proponents about the tactics to be employed. Will X be effective or counter-productive? Is this the right time to try Y? What if we plan a march and no one comes? Those are important discussions.

But they have absolutely nothing to do with “virtue signaling.”

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Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I train my snarkiest comments on the pious hypocrisies and various insanities of the nutty right. But every once in a while, it’s important to concede that the left has its own conspiracy theorists and virtue signalers. Len Farber identified them perfectly in a comment to a previous blog about anti-Semitism. At the end of his comment on the content of that post, he wrote “As for Whoopi – Yes, her statement offended me, but it meant that she needed to learn, not to be banished. I believe that the first part has happened from news reports. I can only hope that ABC comes to its senses. Do I think it was “racism” that got her banished? No, it was “liberal” hypersensitivity, which is also why we have “former Senator Franken.”

Exactly.

For those of you who inexplicably missed the explosion of finger-pointing and recriminations, let me fill you in. On a session of “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg and others were discussing the recent banning of Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir “Maus.” She opined that the Holocaust “was not about race” and that it was instead an example of “white-on-white” violence.

Given the blowback, she might just as well have said that Hitler wasn’t such a bad dude. She was accused of minimizing the Holocaust, and misunderstanding Nazism, and ABC suspended her from the show for two weeks.

As Whoopi now knows, the Nazis insisted that Jews are a race–and an inferior one that needs to be eradicated. They considered Jews to be biologically different from “Aryan” people (and because we have white skin, and can “pass,” they feared we could intermarry and “pollute” the “Master Race.”)

The remarks provoked outrage. Whoopi apologized on social media, and opened the View the next day with an apology.

“Yesterday on our show, I misspoke. I tweeted about it last night but I want you to hear it from me directly,” the comedian and actor said. “I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined, because my words upset so many people, which was never my intention. I understand why now, and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful, and it helped me understand some different things.”

“I said the Holocaust wasn’t about race and was instead about man’s inhumanity to man,” Goldberg said Tuesday on “The View.” “But it is indeed about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race.”

“Now, words matter and mine are no exception. I regret my comments, as I said, and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people as they know and y’all know, because I’ve always done that.”

You would think that might be the end of it, but of course, it wasn’t.

One of the websites I visit regularly is Talking Point Memo. Josh Marshall–the editor, who is Jewish–echoed Len’s observation about the reaction to Whoopie’s remarks.

I read this morning that Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended for two weeks from The View for her earlier comments about the Holocaust. This whole episode is a testament to the general insipidness of our public culture.

Goldberg’s comments were clearly rooted in ignorance rather than malevolence. She not only issued a genuine apology rather than a half-assed ‘I’m sorry if anyone was offended’ type apology. She also spoke to people, privately and publicly, and seemingly learned why her comments were wrongheaded and corrected herself. ABC’s suspension was needless and stupid. It will be derided as “cancel culture.” But it’s really more the kind of corporate ass-covering that only discredits the values it purports to serve. It’s a consequence that, as far as I can tell, basically no one was asking for.

Marshall also noted that, in a show that advertises itself as a freewheeling conversation, you should expect that sometimes someone will say something inartful or dumb. As he says, if it is neither mean-spirited nor resistant to correction, it’s usually worth moving on.

Marshall also noted that Goldberg’s comments grow out of an” essentialism about racism and “whiteness” that reduces not only the magnitude of the Holocaust but, more importantly, the history and anti-Semitism that led to it.” Because science confirms that there really is no such a thing as “race,” race becomes whatever a given culture decides it is.

Whoopie’s apology indicates that she now understands that.

ABC’s decision just blurs the line between performative “inclusion” (virtue signaling) and appropriate negative responses to bigotry; it encourages people to cry “cancel culture” even when there is a legitimate reason to censure someone.

I love Whoopi Goldberg–and I desperately miss Al Franken.

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