Is virtue signaling an actual thing that people are capable of doing

I think I had a breakthrough today, when I observed that the term "virtue signaling" would never ever in a million years be applied to people who post on the internet about taking down elite pedophile cabals

It’s essentially missionary work. Humans follow patterns.

I can tell you
My virtue will still be strong
After the affordable housing is gone

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, August 31, 2021 1:36 PM (yesterday)

and this is why I love ILX

Facebook is basically like 3,000 of these lawn signs per day, on a variety of topics

― Duke Detain (Neanderthal), Tuesday, August 31, 2021 5:08 PM (yesterday)

yeah, that's along the lines of what I was trying to get at about "virtue signaling" being a subset of performativity. Like Facebook is 99.5% performativity and the rest is "what's the cheapest dentist" and "reliable Volvo mechanic?" But only some of that performativity is virtue signaling -- the 3000 lawn signs.

I'm more forgiving of those sorts of signs since it's better than the now apparently-acceptable alternative of being a proud fascist.

these signs only appear in deep blue suburbs.

uh no

see above

One time I saw an obviously wealthy boomer couple driving a black BMW SUV and the license plate said ZNFNDL

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

rejected "Boys of Summer" lyrics I have loved

Was also thinking - the ritualized land acknowledgments at meetings that go on to say nothing about indigenous people or their issues - like, who is this for? What is it doing?

― JoeStork, Tuesday, August 31, 2021 11:14 AM (yesterday)

otm! I was thinking about this the other day, actually. Like, "land acknowledgements" are inherently location-specific and context-specific. But what seems to have happened in practice, is that progressive groups in some regions have adopted it because "everyone else is doing it" and not really interrogating the specifics of the history of the indigenous peoples where they are vs. the initial colonialists, and subsequent conquests.

It reminds me of the George Floyd protests, where in Minneapolis, the protesters looted, smashed and burned a Target store. ... And then when the protests spread to other parts of the country, the protesters attacked Target stores, because that's what Minneapolis did. And I'm not saying this in the context of "damaging corporate property = bad" ... but in the tension/juxtaposition of the tendency of "property crime" in the context of protests being spontaneous and autonomous

https://mashable.com/article/in-this-house-we-believe-black-lives-matter-kindness-is-everything-sign

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, August 31, 2021 3:36 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

is this satire

requesting a dramatic adulatory mashable article about every single post in why do i hate that artist thing that people keep posting on my facebook so much? why am i such a jerk?

they are bad because they reduce politics to just things you believe inside of you and not things that are actually accomplished. that's why they can put signs about zoning issues next to them with no understanding why it's wrong. individually the phrases are very empty. like an oil company geologist and an environmental scientist can both believe "science is real." anti-maskers yell "follow the science" all the time. it isn't just hypocritical.

― criminally negligible (harbl), Tuesday, August 31, 2021 1:23 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

booming post

these things should be *performative* in the non-performative-wokeness sense of the word, they can be to some extent, they resonate, they do some work, for better and/or worse, despite/because whatever self-interest from various parties. fuck turning it all into just vibes and content and all that bullshit. most of these are solid values, i think, some of them as solid as you can get right now. if they're just for being put on up a wall somewhere as some kind of concession in lieu of the resourses necessary to actually back them up then they're bullshit and the people who believe in them should use every capacity to make them not bullshit

basically if or when virtue signalling works we can and should use it. because it's not great but it seems to do something

when it doesn't, or when it stops working, it's bullshit

Left and harbl otm

Like, this collective community center I've recently gotten involved in has meetings where at the beginning of the meeting we go around and state our preferred pronouns and say if we have accessibility needs. And sometimes it seems like ... hey, there are only 5 of us here, and we all know each other, and it feels kinda absurd, but you know, it's a good practice to have. Same with thanking everyone and expressing appreciation for emotional labor ... it's nice to feel thanked and appreciated.

are the preferred pronouns optional? I feel like asking people to commit to those can put people in a position where they have to decide on them and in a public setting when they may not be ready and comfortable.

there are a lot of she/they or he/they pronouns stated ...in addition to people who are solely "they" and trans people who are "she" (no they)

tbh I think pronoun declarations make a substantial minority of trans ppl feel uncomfortable, but most of that subset (myself among them) have come to the conclusion that it’s the best of the universally imperfect options presented by the realities of language and society.

being questioning/in early transition is deeply awkward, period, and neither being asked about yr pronouns nor having them assumed are a lot of fun, but erring on the side of self-determination is the best we can do. I will say I prefer a pile of pins/badges to the “go around the room” ritual; feels more casual, and getting to be at all casual about gender is such a rare luxury when yr in that headspace.

incredibly relatable

"Virtue signaling" is much like calling the Democratic Party the "Democrat" party. Wingnuts do this thinking that their ability to call the left names constitutes proof that they're smarter than 'em.

when your lawn sign comes with caveats

They covered up “no human is illegal” pic.twitter.com/LKtKEoIFOE

— fourth and 5.5 inches (@moleburps) September 19, 2021

Reading the "preferred pronouns" discussion upthread, this is something I'm thinking about a lot as I'm teaching French to middle schoolers, quite a few of whom use nonbinary pronouns. My classes usually involve a lot of talking to and about each other - like, ask each other these questions and then report on what you found out! So I'm now trying to figure out the best way to bring French nonbinary pronouns (which are still very new and not officially recognized but do exist) into the classroom, and also the best way to make sure we all state our pronouns when we're doing an activity like that so the nonbinary kids don't have to deal with being misgendered all the time. But every time I talk about nonbinary pronouns - and you do kind of have to talk about it because gender-neutral language in French is way harder than it is in English - I feel like I'm probably making those kids feel uncomfortable. I wish there were a better way but I don't think there is.

I have an enby kid in high school; they asked their Spanish teacher about how to do nonbinary pronouns.

The teacher wasn't a jerk about it - she understood the question and took it seriously. But ultimately all she could do was shrug and point back to the textbook.

Like when I learned French one would say la porte but le stylo, and if you didn't yet know what you were referring to, it would end up as il / ils because masculine is generic.

yeah, I may be putting more emphasis on it than I need to, but my feeling is who cares if it's not textbook French yet, people who want to use it are using it, and we're not actually in France, we're in a school where a bunch of kids use nonbinary pronouns and are used to getting a fair amount of support for that from the school. So it would feel very weird and wrong to me to go "sorry, you can have nonbinary pronouns everywhere but in French class, plz choose a gender now," especially when there are plenty of French-speakers out there who are pushing for more gender-neutral language.

But it is extra complicated. The pronouns themselves are easy - iel and ielle are the main ones - but you also have to say what adjective agreements you're using, and those have to be either masculine or feminine. Which is annoying, and adds a step, but it's not as much of a deal-breaker as it sounds like. For one thing, as you said, masculine is generic. And for another, when even inanimate objects like the table and the door have gendered adjective endings, gender agreement isn't quite as imbued with the idea of personal identity as an English-speaker might assume. Or at least that's how I understand it.