Good piece. I agree that the concept of signalling as a major force in behavior shouldn't be used as a weapon against individual people but only in the abstract, to understand behavior and improve institutions and norms. https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2019/01/on-words-and-weapons.html … 1/
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That being said, I think the (over)use of "virtue signalling" has evolved in response to a type of argument that's barely an argument at all but simply assumes its conclusion. There isn't much to engage rationally w/ when something isn't expressed as an argument to begin with. 2/
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This is likely a result of debate shifting from a focused person-to-person model to a distributed tribe-to-tribe model where internal dynamics become more important and external communication less so. /3
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So rational persuasion gives way to coordination, mobilization and orthodoxy enforcement as a goal. The quality of argument goes down by rational standards because the function has changed, and opponents of course pounce on this. /4
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How to improve things? One idea would be to separate intra-tribal from inter-tribal communication but that isn't going to happen. The best we can do is boring: improve understanding of how all this works so we can avoid at least the stuff coming from misunderstandings.
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Replying to @everytstudies
Yes, the signalling concept is important, but once you realize that all speech is in a social context it is vacuous to claim that an argument is signalling. You can either dismiss the speaker as unworthy (ad hominem) or you can engage with the argument.
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Replying to @robamacl
Sort of. I think many claims get dismissed that way because they aren't factual or explicitly moral claims as such, rather the implication is that oneself and one's own side is morally superior. It's this claim that's being rejected as empty.
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Yes, I want to retain the category for this reason. I think there’s merit in the argument against using the term, but it’s important that so much speech does seem to be just claiming tribal superiority without any consideration of the semantic content.
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