Safe Haven

Dr. Bryan Cross, on something that's been bothering me a long time: "Something I wrote in July of 2016 about the rise of the charge of 'virtue-signalling:' What I see in the acceptance of the use of "virtue signaling" as a criticism is something quite dangerous, something that, without an explicit and principled difference provided, just is public judgment and negative deconstruction of the motives of others from the point of view of cynicism. ... [W]ithout additional contravening evidence the [apparently] righteous statements and actions of our neighbors should be taken at face value as sincere, on the principle of charity. But if additional evidence indicates that these righteous statements and actions are only for show, then that evidence (or the discord between that evidence and their 'righteous' words and actions) should be the means of criticizing these statements and actions. That evidence shows the hypocrisy, and makes the public criticism j...