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?

And how do you know the purpose of another person's post, JohnCusacksWife? You can't see inside their heads or their hearts, can you? Like the rest of us, you have to infer from what they've written. But your inference is fallible. You may think you know their purpose and you may be flat out wrong. And if you want their purpose to be one you don't like, such as virtue signalling, because you disagree with other aspects of their message, you're more likely to be wrong and see such signalling where it doesn't exist. That's confirmation bias, and we're all prone to it.

I like the idea of seaming a mine

You might have a point, HomeHelp. It's hard to discuss this stuff without falling into the same trap. And I don't claim to be 'above' using statements to hint at belonging to this or that in-group; as PPs have pointed out, that's not really possible.

Perhaps it's partly an internet thing as well as a human thing. After all, online we can't judge people based on what they do, only what they say, so what people say becomes all-important as a measure of moral worth.

Having said all that, I stand by the assertion that on MN there is a fairly well-defined set of themes that are shorthand at the signalling level for 'I am a good person'. You can't signal your moral worth on MN by disliking benefit fraudsters, for example, though that might be an effective way of virtue-signalling in a different context. I think just saying 'oh but all communication has a moral meta-level so yabu' obscures the fact that there are distinct tropes here that are used for virtue-signalling and distinct virtues that are considered acceptable to signal.

In real life I tend to say 'I read it on mumsnet so it must be true.' I know some people think I'm a gullible fool, sometimes the feeling is mutual.

btw op yanbu I find it annoying that people will assume I have no judgement on something I've read unless I provide some sort of caveat.

I think some of the stories in the Mail are interesting to investigate, if only to see where I stand compared to the vox pop, same with mumsnet.

smugupmanship

Brilliant word!

Thanks, Dodo,

HomeHelpMe I think you're bang on with all your posts.

I find a lot of people do this outside of Internet forums too.
I mentioned to a friend about the TV series Vikings, as I thought it might be of interest and got told "oh, we don't watch TV" it was said with a silent "so I am intellectually superior to you."

(Actually they spend hours watching illegally downloaded shite on the laptop, but y'know)

I was going to say smugupmanship too!
:)

YANBU!

You have put it a lot better than me but ive basically justvdaid the same on another thread. I do care about this country, the refugees, actually a lot but there is always a couple of posters going that little bit further to talk about their Shame and embarrassment at being British because the rest of us are all uncaring cunts

I love watching the Skynewspaper review with Andrew and Kevin. Proper pantomime hyperbolae to send me off to bed with a lighter outlook on the cares of the World.

YANBU But I hate the Daily Mail.

I remember them publishing a story about a bloke who was a Tamil hunger striker, claiming that he was eating Maccy Ds in secret.

DM wasn't the only paper that published the story - which unsurprisingly turned out to be a lie; but they utterly refused to own up and be decent about it until absolutely forced, and their heavy duty industrial strength lawyers even managed to get a statement of their position included when the BBC made a documentary about it.

In my opinion that betrays an attitude that they can never be wrong and the truth is irrelevant which is deeply troubling.

For this reason I treat anything reported by them as extremely questionable and so when sent links to outrageous stories I never lose an opportunity to express my hatred of the DM and their whole attitude and approach. And that's before we start talking about the hypocrisy of their moral outrage about various things alongside all the pictures of scantiliy clad celebs with attendant comment about body image etc.

I dunno, I think virtue signalling might have its uses occasionally. Social pressure can, in some cases, be a force for moral good. Obvious examples are racism and drink driving - both socially acceptable a generation ago, now generally not. It can be social pressure that helps people to see that certain attitudes or behaviours are not OK.

I think it's a bit cynical to assume that all virtuous sounding statements are just posturing. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

It's particularly straightforward to take the example of talking about benefit fraud.

Because it's so obviously dependent on audience as to whether that "signals virtue" or not.

As Manatee says, a rant about supposed benefit fraud will probably not be enthusiastically greeted on MN. On the other hand, I can think of several venues in my real-life where it would be a passport to acceptance and claps on back.

So this isn't particularly an MN phenomenon, or internet phenomenon. Any more than there being (loosely) majority values in any group is an internet phenomenon.

And I think you're right, Home, that people notice when they themselves are out of step with the particular values being expressed, and it jars. When they're hearing their own values, that's all just good common sense, you know!

well one persons 'virtue signalling' (is this the new PC gorn mad?) is another persons honesty - I do hate the DM and I am kind and compassionate - so bite me!

The "mind-reading" component is reminding me of a flatmate I once had, who lost her shit about the fact that I used to cook my own dinner. She was really quite vile to me about it.

It turned out that she didn't cook her own dinner from scratch, but felt guilty about this (why, fgs?!). And that she thought me cooking was a deliberate put-down, "virtue-signalling" that I was a better person than her.

I just wanted my dinner.

YANBU.

I find it amusing that the average Mumsnetter is forever falling over themselves to prove how tolerant, inclusive and non judgemental they are, while at the same time stating the importance of living in the 'right' area and sending the DCs to the 'right' school.

Because on here no-one must overtly look down on people that they see as 'less naice' than themselves, but there is nothing wrong with not wanting to closely mix with them in their day to day lives

OP, absolutely true.

It has long been the case on MN that any deviance from Groupthink results in unpleasant name calling and subtle bullying and frothy shrieks of 'racist.'

The recent rash of "I have cried for a week, do something NOW" hysterical cant has absolutely astonished me. You've seen an upsetting photo, now suddenly you are an expert in managing millions of displaced, intimidating young men, many of whom have no identification whatsoever.

When asked, you would LOVE to take in a refugee, but no room, and can't march about it as you'll be at a wedding.

When challenged a bit more, you shout 'racist' and go off on some surreal tandem about 'othering' language and thus derailing the debate and silencing any different viewpoint.

My personal favourite are the hollow-eyed exhausted Virtue Signallers who sigh that they would LOVE to go to bed, but they've got the call-up to police a thread where someone might have had an original non-left-wing thought and so they bash on, into the night, out-doing everyone else with their terror of isms and phobics, shame at being British, heartbreak at everything to do with children and kittens etc.

Go to bed, you're not THAT important.

manatee, I'm not suggesting you ignore the fact that some tropes are more popular than others on MN. I'm saying

1. I don't think that's worht getting irritated about, because it's true of all institutions
2. you will spot the tropes that prove your point and discount the ones that don't, unless you take deliberate steps to avoid doing so (eg a quant analysis) because that's the nature of confirmation bias

I think, on balance, MN, like my FB feed, tends to the centre left and posts reflect this. But MN, like my FB feed, includes many other views, and there is plenty of supportive posting for those on the centre right too. So I disagree that you can't signal your virtue here by disliking benefit fraudsters. You can, and many will agree, but a preponderance will disagree

As to why MN is where it is, on balance,on the political spectrum...there'll be a set of facts that are relevant and many interpretations of them. We can pick the ones we find most convincing, which will by and large reflect our political starting points

"So I disagree that you can't signal your virtue here by disliking benefit fraudsters. You can, and many will agree, but a preponderance will disagree"

Agree: your more nuanced way of putting it is more accurate than mine.

The Daily Mail and other papers exist for the purposes of their readership. If the Daily Mail ceased to exist tomorrow people would still hold the attitudes.

I actually, genuinely don't read the Mail a lot of Mumsnetters who hate it do though but I won't read the Guardian for similar, though opposite, reasons - the selective reports irritate me more than I can express!

I read the DM, I also read the Guardian, Independent, Telegraph and sometimes Sky online, What does this make me? It makes me someone who is lucky enough to be able to make a choice about what I read, whether I believe everything I read or not is another matter, it certainly doesn't make me a better or worse person that anyone else.

I read the DM, I also read the Guardian, Independent, Telegraph and sometimes Sky online, What does this make me? It makes me someone who is lucky enough to be able to make a choice about what I read, whether I believe everything I read or not is another matter, it certainly doesn't make me a better or worse person that anyone else

^Spot on Moreshabby

PausingFlatly, you and I have agreed with each other on each post here! (I'm not sure what virtue we're signalling to each other, but that's probably for the best )

It's your Groupthink, HomeHelpMe. I'm just scared of your subtle bullying if I voice an original thought.