2024 was probably the peak year so far for virtue-signalling. It's easy to see through the grim spectacle of this widespread halo-polishing that has infested our society. People virtue-signal as a sign of righteous posturing in an effort to seem morally superior. But, psychologically, why do people want to feel morally superior? It's primarily to fulfil their own needs and establish their own identity, which is, sadly, usually built on validating their individual worth in the mirror of their own insecurities and adequacies.
We should want much better for them, because these are people to be pitied. They are desperate to acquire a sense of belonging and acceptance, and they have deep-seated psychological and social needs that sit in conflict with genuine virtue, courage and truth. Because virtue-signallers have little confidence in their own intellect, their ethics and their over-simplistic grasp on complex situations - they know deep down that they are fraudulent, inauthentic moral peacocks - they use their self-righteous parading as a way to deflect from their own guilt and shame.
All this is easy to understand when you remember that virtue-signalling is not being virtuous; it's a near opposite, like how prurient indulgence in flattery is a near opposite of sincere praise, or like how a wolf in sheep's clothing is a near opposite of a shepherd. That is the big cheat of virtue-signalling - it's telling lies about virtue to conceal vice.
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