to get a bit irritated with all the virtue signalling on MN

[OTheHugeManatee]

Virtue signalling = going on really loudly about how much you hate something that's considered right-on to hate (eg UKIP, the Daily Mail) in order to tell the world how kind, compassionate and generally virtuous you are.

I see it all the time on MN. It's the moral equivalent of stealth boasting. Instead of saying 'Look at how much more kind and compassionate I am than most other people' virtue signallers claim really loudly to hate something 'bad', thereby hinting at their superior niceness rather than bragging about it out loud.

As well as being thoroughly in bad faith it creates a climate where sometimes quite difficult and nuanced issues can't be discussed, because any attempt to weigh different sides is drowned out by people using that issue to signal their own virtue.

I'm averagely right-on, averagely selfish/kind/whatever, generally fairly normal I suppose in my ethical views. But I find all this posturing hypocritical and very irritating. The internet seems to be making it worse. AIBU to wish it would stop?

Saw a post on here in the last couple of days that reached the dizzy heights.

Why is it anything to do with being seen as kind and compassionate?
For me, not reading the daily mail (or anything that Rupert Murdoch is involved with) is a moral choice.
They are hate mongering, right wing, racist mysoginists.
If you like that sort of thing, then you read them.

It is very easy to 'hate' something and much harder to do something about it. I can't say I do much at all really, but at least I don't go around banging on about my moral superiority.

YADNBU!!! I read the Daily Mail.....and other papers. They're all much of a muchness.

Why make a big fuss about it, unless you're trying to signal something about who you are?

Why make a big fuss about what they do, unless you're equally trying to signal something?

Don't we all give out signals whenever we express an opinion?

YANBU and thank you for summing up how I feel about this at the moment.

It will be interesting to see what happens when this current wave of sentimentality passes.

Ah, yes. The DN and DE "miracle" cures. Not a week goes by without these much raking rags promising the gullible that there will be a cure for dementia/arthritis/cancer/MS/diabetes*

*delete as applicable.

Whilst at the same time telling the same gullible souls that asd/adhd/autism* doesn't exist

• delete as applicable

No, actually I think it's quite important to challenge extremist views that try to present themselves as mainstream (which is essentially what unites the Daily Mail and UKIP). If you don't challenge these things (and yes ridiculing and denigrating them in passing counts as challenging) then they can take hold. Both DM and UKIP have enough money and vested interests behind them that they don't need feeling sorry for, and both in their own way attempt to win people over to their way of seeing the world. If others want to fight back, even in a small, personal way, good for them.

That's fair enough Badders123 - I agree with you on the whole. But virtue signalling is if you then go on about it in every conversation and insist that that therefore means that you are a morally superior person, (which I am sure you don't).

There are probably mass murderers who don't shop at certain supermarkets on ethical grounds.

I was talking to my ds1 the other day about press bias.
He didn't really see what I was saying til I went in the BBC news website and showers him the front pages of the newspapers for that day.
The bias is so blatant it's mind boggling that people don't see it.
I don't read newspapers any more pretty much for that reason. I tend to get my news -actual news, not celeb shit and miracle cure peddling - from reputable sources such as Reuters.

YANBU
I read "virtue signalling" as code for "sanctimonious and closed minded".
If you have to point out your virtues to others and make disparaging comparisons you are probably not "walking the talk".

But virtue signalling is not about challenging - that is the point. A logical challenge to a specific view is useful and vital to a functioning society.

An "I hate the DM/UKIP because everything about them is bad" - and the implication that "I am therefore a better person than you becasue you don't hate them." That is simply silly - and not helpful.

Dunno.
I certainly make assumptions about people if I find out they read the DM/sun/DE and the like.
I assume they are right wing, rabid immigrant haters and homophobic twats.
But...they can't all be, can they?
:)
So no, I don't think I inhabit a moral high ground at all. I judge. But I judge people whose views I think are tawdry and fatuous.

You can wish what you want OP.

I always find the 'you must be a daily mail reader, you cunt!!!!' posters more frothy, narrow minded and unhinged sounding than the people they are on about

This ^^ The vast majority of issues are a bit more than just black and white, but god help anyone who points that out on here sometimes

On the point of bias - most "news" is biased one way or another depending on what you/they think is important.

What is useful is what you did with your ds1 Badders - and showed him how they all have different takes on it. (Some more "fact-based" than others.)

I think that saying that people should not express an opinion unless they have a fully worked out argument to support it is essentially silencing people. Saying, I don't like the daily mail because it distorts the truth/is racist/sexist whatever or even just I hate the DM, are valid points of view despite not coming with footnotes to support them.

YANBU.

Spot on post

No black and white for me regarding ukip (pardon the pun)
Support them by all means.
But you are supporting a racist, homophobic, bigoted, misoginistic political party whose leader is IMHO a sociopath.

Don't try and make it something it isn't.
That's all.

YANBU. MN is like a Union Closed shop. If you aren't "one of them" you're Evil Tory Scum, Racist Bigot, Frothing Daily Fail reader etc etc - oh and of course, the very favourite MN insult, a Cunt.

It was an eye opener for me too tbh.
I had forgotten just how incredibly partisan the British press is.
How on earth is princess Diana still doing on the front pages of our national press?
The woman has been dead 18 years!

Virtu signalling is not the absence of argument. I agree that does silence people.
Virtue signalling is the "I hate x " therefore I am a morally superior person to you, (unless you also declare that you hate X)". It is different thing.

Whether it is DM or Fruit Shoots or loo brushes or boarding schools or whatever.....

YANBU. MN is like a Union Closed shop. If you aren't "one of them" you're Evil Tory Scum, Racist Bigot, Frothing Daily Fail reader etc etc - oh and of course, the very favourite MN insult, a Cunt.

This point of view is as common on MN these days as the one you're complaining about. You're a pair of matching bookends.

YABU from me.

If anyone wants to discuss "quite difficult and nuanced" issues they can ignore comments that simply refer to the dubiousness of their source, or challenge those comments. If referring to the DM is challenged - so what?

To say that certain views are put across in "thoroughly bad faith" does not help - how would you know?

It seems almost as if you accuse anyone going beyond the moral standards that you consider "normal" to be guilty of deliberate moral one-upmanship.

What is "normal"? What does "normal" matter anyway when morals are being discussed?!?