Philosoraptor: Cameron Harwick: Worry About Piety Contests, Not "Virtue Signaling"

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Interesting. "Piety contests" is a pretty great term for what we see on the PC left right now, I'd say.

darius jedburgh said...: I agree with some of this. But I don't think he quite puts his finger on one of the main reasons for thinking of 'piety contest' as more apt: the implication of 'virtue signalling' that it might, if successful, make it more likely, or is even intended to make it more likely, that people will want to be around you.; 10:42 AM
Winston Smith said...: Yeah, I agree--it's not a great piece, but I thought it was interesting enough to post.

I read somebody objecting that 'virtue signalling' basically presupposes that the views in question are virtuous...which some of us deny. 'Piety' seems a bit less like (roughly) a success term. Its possible negative interpretations seem more obvious (though maybe that's just to the philosopher's ear...normal people don't talk about virtue like we do anymore, do they?)

I wonder how much such wrangling over terminology matters? Sometimes I think *not much,* sometimes I think *lots.*; 11:23 AM
Anonymous said...: One descriptive benefit of piety here is it signifies a ritual rather than a moral judgement, which is really a lot of what I'm seeing on the Left right now. Privelege talk isn't rational discourse, it is liturgy. Except without a few millennia of cultural evolution containing its manic excesses.; 12:57 PM