The moral absolutism of virtue signaling

Its layers, benefits and ultimate purpose

May 27, 2025

This post was inspired by a part of this conversation:

Which made me realize that whatever the issue or whatever the side is, there is plenty of room for virtue signaling.
If you take an honest look inside yourself, I’m sure you will find some instances of it.

A little aside on the conversation:
This was my first encounter with Dave Smith, but I know Douglas Murray. I read three of his books and will probably read his last one as well. I like him more than not.
In a Q&A session in a public event at some point I asked a question from him. His answer was a very disappointing, trite, virtue signaling BS.
His behaviour in this interview was just as disappointing. Arrogant, condescending virtue signaling.
The problem with this attitude is that it highlights his inadequacies, like the fact that he is woefully ill-informed of the Ukraine conflict and its wide-reaching implications.
Dave Smith was a little better, but he also fell into the virtue signaling trap on the Gaza issue; not realizing that trying to rationalize an emotional position is NOT an argument in defense of that position, as it makes the conversation descend into hyperboles. The virtue signaler in a conversation is trying to convince himself by inflating the emotional content of his original position until it reaches the status of a categorical imperative. From that point on, the conversation is just a rewording and restatement of the original position.
The only thing that gives me hope is the comments section with its almost unanimously negative reaction to the attitude of Douglas Murray.
Still, the fact remains that three hours of conversation was not enough for the three of them to get either to the root causes or the implications of the subjects they were talking about.
The real questions were lost in the fog of virtue signaling and posturing.
I blame mostly Douglas Murray for it.

I am also in Europe, doing the Habsburg triangle of Vienna – Prague – Budapest. I had one reasonable conversation in the past three weeks. The rest was poorly informed emotional virtue signaling ending in most cases with me backing down facing the righteous overreactions.
I had plenty opportunity reflecting on it.

Virtue signaling has several functions and motivations

Virtue signaling is freedom from thinking, knowing or understanding.
It always rest on a simple propaganda narrative designed to evoke an emotional response.
Virtue signaling is freedom from responsibility, decision making or any requirement to do something virtuous. A simple declaration will take care of every requirement thinking people would expect.
Virtue signaling is an act of taking a side.
A manifestation of where you stand and where you belong
Virtue signaling is a claim on social status and an expectation of respect from your in-group.
The virtue arises from the compliance with the narrative. The more you comply, the more virtuous you are.
Virtue signaling is always judgmental, sending a simple message:
disagreeing with me means not only that you are wrong, but also morally inferior to me. I don’t need to understand your position, because it is inferior to mine by definition.

Virtue signaling people consider any questioning of their position is never about the actual subject, but an attack on their person, an offense to their moral core.

Virtue signaling always comes with a healthy dose of aggression and hostility. Their function is to be pre-emptive. Since they see any opposition to their ideas as an attack on their person, they pre-emptively attack your person instead of your argument. Their insulting and berating their opponents is also a defense mechanism, for the same reason. Let me illustrate.

Just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a relative, a former volunteer snitch to the communist secret police. I know that he was a snitch and I am quite sure that he knows that I know. Everybody around him knows, including his children, but I never confronted him about it. He declares himself a Marxist. I tried to avoid controversial subjects talking to him, so when the subject came up, I was happy to talk about Canada. It has no relevance to his existence, so no controversy. I was asked about the election. I said I was not happy about the result.
“Because your guys lost?” No, I said, I am concerned that this may be the end of Canada.
“Because your guys lost?” (with a clear schadenfreude in the tone) No, I said, but because Alberta started working on separation the day after the election. Then I went on explaining why, making the case Alberta and the Western provinces are making for their independence. If Alberta leaves the western provinces will leave with it and if that happens, Quebec will too. I went into a lot more detail, but at some point, he interrupted me with a question:

“How much does Alberta pays you to say that?” My stomach sank to my heels and I ended the conversation. This would be a typical conversation with the virtue signaling left. When they run out of arguments, they insult. Or they insult you just for the fun of it. To keep you on your toes. To put you in your place. To teach you who is the boss.

The real problem is the emotions distorting our judgements. You can find a perfect example in the Joe Rogan interview in the exchange between Dave Smith and Douglas Murray:

At around 2:20:52
Dave Smith:
… it's easy to talk about how like if the Palestinians had done this different then maybe things would have worked out different but I just think again when you look at things, when you say which essentially I think is your point here, right which I mean I tried to push you on this but you're saying look we can degrade Hamas but the cost of that is going to be slaughtering a whole bunch of people.
Douglas Murray: it’s not slaughtering it's war
Dave Smith:
okay i think you're okay they're not being slaughtered they're being killed okay how whatever word you want ….
Douglas Murray:…killed in a brutal war started by Hamas yes
Dave Smith:
… yes it's babies and little kids screaming out for help under rubble and no help is coming they sit there under the rubble until they die that is the level of human suffering that's being inflicted; and if you want to say: well listen that's a price that I'm willing to pay to try to degrade Hamas, even though you yourself recognize that we can't totally eliminate them but we could maybe degrade them or maybe take them down a peg and the price for that is these babies being tortured to death..
Essentially whatever you want to call it that okay but from the other side of that story like if there's like I got little kids I don't know if you have kids, I know you have kids Joe.
If anybody ever was saying to me that like my kids were the acceptable price for this policy that we want to put into place I'm saying I don't think there's any scenario any scenario Douglas where there would be any time where you would accept Israeli kids dying like that as an acceptable price for a policy that you're going to be uh um advocating for.

Pure, virtue signaling emotional manipulation.

From [2:22:24] Douglas Murray sets the record straight….. sort of, and the wrong way.

First, he didn’t go nearly far enough with the explanation, and second, he did not call out Dave Smith for the emotional manipulation.
He called him out on framing with language, but he could have just as easily turn around the manipulative argument about ‘the children’, showing how their fate is the responsibility of their parents, who chose to live with the booby traps, weapons and ammunition stockpiles around them. The parents who chose not to leave despite the warnings that those are military targets. The parents who empowered Hamas and its militants. If Joe Rogan and Dave Smith would take their children into the trenches in the front lines of a hot war, then any harm that would come to their children would be on them, not the enemy.

What is interesting, is that the dynamics was the same on the Ukraine proxy war exchange, except with the roles reversed. Dave smith was the rational and Douglas Murray the virtue signaling emotional one.

In both cases, their judgment came before their understanding.
That is the real problem with virtue signaling. Not the laziness to think, not the tribalism, not the shirking of responsibility, not the judgmentalism, but putting the emotions in front of everything else.

It is putting the cart on front of the horse. It is the emotional need for an absolute. The need for a judgement that need no more thinking or compromise.

Virtue signaling is a psychological need that has nothing to do with virtue, logic and least of all understanding.
Virtue signaling is a weapon to bludgeon your opponent with. It posits virtue as a value higher than reason.
But the biggest problem is this:

Virtue signaling, with its into your face, holier than thou aggression ALWAYS stands in the way of finding actual solutions to real problems.
This makes it absolutely and fundamentally immoral.
It must be confronted at every opportunity.

I am not done with the subject, I will return to it in a few more posts. If you are still not subscribed, now is the time. You could also send this to all your virtue signaling friends and relatives. I can take the heat…

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