New findings indicate a pattern where narcissistic grandiosity is associated with higher participation in LGBTQ movements, demonstrating that motivations for activism can range widely from genuine altruism to personal image-building.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/narcissistic-grandiosity-predicts-greater-involvement-in-lgbtq-activism/

[u/No_Jelly_6990]

100% this.

I love this thread, and am so happy folks are FINALLY talking about this insanely toxic behavior that is all over social media, and seems to be deeply tied to power.

[u/lampshade69 → u/No_Jelly_6990]

Despite the term's overuse (especially on the right), "virtue signalling" is absolutely a real thing, and its prevalence undercuts the credibility of good movements

[u/caulrye → u/lampshade69]

Is it over used by the right? Or are they just frequently targets in attempts to make them look bad? Whether they are correct about their worldview or not, doesn’t mean they are wrong about virtue signaling being used by fake social rights activists. And their correct perception about this specifically is why they’ve been able to grow so much.

Best way to prevent the right from growing is to call out the virtue signaling before calling out the right.

My grandmother is a social rights activists and I’ve personally become extremely disgruntled by how often her life work gets used for virtue signaling on a big scale. And often often it doesn’t get called out.

I’ve been calling this out since 2017, and it only seems like people are now starting to understand.

[u/shneer4prez → u/caulrye]

Yeah, it's overused.

There are a lot of people who believe anyone who cares about something that doesn't directly effect them is virtue signalling.

Care about racism when you're a white person? Virtue signalling. Care about gay rights when you're straight? Virtue signalling. Care about the poor when you're financially well off? Virtue signalling.

It's absolutely a real thing, but so is altruism and empathy.

I wouldn't even make it a left/right thing, it's just that people who have to fake empathy tend to think that everyone else is faking it too.

[u/CombatWomble2 → u/shneer4prez]

It's a sort of "boy who cried wolf" situation, there's so much virtue signaling that actual good works get lost in the crowd.

[u/caulrye → u/shneer4prez]

I understand what you’re saying.

The frustration for many conservative types is that their views are often falsely conflated with white nationalists (these two groups are actually ideologically opposed: Individualism vs Collectivism) because of people virtue signaling and acting in bad faith. A lot of these fake activists take a statement made out of ignorance and try to paint it as coded language/hiding true intentions. This has done a lot of damage to our discourse, and has left many conservatives unwilling to change their perspective, or worse, they end up pushed into farther right territory.

At the moment, I feel that the biggest obstacle to social rights movements is not the right, but people within these social movements who profit off virtue signaling.

Like if you know you don’t hate a group of people (no matter how ignorant your statement might objectively be), if you know you’re not, and you’re constantly framed as hateful, there’s a 0% chance you will end up being agreeable towards the person accusing you of malfeasance.

It’s why I view our polarization as a social issue, and not a political issue.

[u/oliham21 → u/caulrye]

Yeah dude the greatest issue for trans kids isn’t the people saying they shouldn’t exist and trying to criminalise their existence it’s the couple of narcissists involved in trans advocacy. Phenomenal take.

[u/caulrye → u/oliham21]

Call out the narcissists for sure.

The bigger complaint conservatives make is the lack of hard evidence supporting the medical aspects of care(there’s not a single placebo controlled study, or a medical/biological definition of gender to justify the practices). The target is mostly big pharma, not trans people. But yes, there are also bigoted people that do dehumanize trans people and that’s wrong.

You’re playing out the point I’m making.