It’s a bit sticky I’d say. There is the old saying- which has strong logical backing- that to stand in silence and do nothing is to be culpable in the act. It is in fact often a crime in many jurisdictions to stand by in silence in presence of wrong doing if one could act without risk to their own safety- and even WITH risk to ones safety- people have been sentenced, even hung for humanitarian crimes where they did not take a stand against them, even if they didn’t directly contribute to them but were aware of them.
As for virtue signaling, the phrase has taken on an almost jingoistic meaning- and a pejorative one at that- but signaling behavior and “virtue signaling” aren’t just part of being human- they also can be beneficial to a society. While merely speaking on something is in essence the lowest effort someone can put in to a thing while still associating themselves with a “side” of the issue- and certainly it can be self serving, to “identify” a person as a “good guy”- without support popular movements have no feet. And the truth is that the single majority group in America is still “white” at present- so for any minority to gather a “majority” voice in society that minority will need members of other groups to join them.
Of course, yes, sometimes “awareness” campaigns can hurt more than they help. Often people will feel like speaking on the issue is already them having done their part, and so they won’t actually attend protests or demonstrations. They won’t take other actions for the cause and will assume their voice is enough and will bring others who will do the heavy lifting- if those others also only speak- that can be a problem. But... when people speak and act, or even sometimes when enough people and the right people speak- that can bring change. I’m hesitant to dismiss a person who “only speaks out” for these and other reasons. We can say that speaking up at the least is more than many folks are willing to do.
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· 3 years ago
@cakelover, guess what, as a white man, you don't have to be a dick. Cause when for you showing solidarity is "virtue signalling", then hell yeah, you're a dick and a very major part of the very problem. This is one man and his one voice, using it to show solidarity, it's not a messed up corporation trying to make a buck of it. What's your contribution except wise-cracking from the sideline?
We could argue- it’s philosophical- that no act by a human is “without reason,” but that any act by a human can be committed with senseless reason- such as an emotional response of mental failure. So I mean- we could say a person is always shot at for a reason but we could also say that the reason may exist entirely in the mind of the shooter and have no fault or responsibility of the target.
It really shouldn’t. It does happen though- which was less meant to be dismissive and more meant to be in context to a previous comment by a third party in this thread about the question to what role an individual who is shot/shot at plays in fault to the incident- that your personal experience is an example, additive to all the other real life examples, supports the stance that people can be shot at for what we can effectively call “no reason”- or more precisely by no fault of their own and without foreseeable and reasonable cause to be.
Sorry you had to go through it. Being shot at, not fun.
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“No one knows what that means... but it’s provocative. It gets the people going.”