It is material exactly here. The preference for "ideology signaling" comes from desire to frame both sides as the same. "Cruelty signaling" is very accurate descriptor. It does not even suggest right wing only thing, if someone on the left signals cruelty, they would engage in cruelty signaling. And if someone on the right performatively helps poor, they are engaging in virtue signaling.

The trouble is, if the things are called as what they are, you cant say "both sides are the same". Because one side is promoting cruelty and the other is not.

> says things they don't believe to curry favour

If you do not believe that trans people should be beating up, but say so to look manly to your boss, you still promoted beating of trans.

I cannot decide to what extent they see it that way. They certainly have entirely plausible virtuous reasoning for everything they do. Whether that is what they actually believe or not, I have no idea. It is hard to understand the point of view of someone who seems like causing pain is their only priority, and I prefer to think that only describes a small fraction of the people I disagree with politically.

You would need to ask that of someone who agrees with their font choices. I am only opining that they probably have $REASONS that they believe to be virtuous, and that by calling it virtue signaling, we point that out.

In my time as a righteous woke progressive, it eventually dawned on me that the other side was just as likely to believe in the righteousness of their cause, even if I couldn't understand their reasoning for it. It also dawned on me that the righteous folks on the other side of the divide likely see my beliefs and the reasoning by which I arrived at them as equally baffling.

If both sides believe fully in their righteousness, and see their opponents as wholly unreasonable, then we will end up in a non-religious holy war.

The only way to recover is for both sides to turn down their righteousness.

One small step to do that is to at least try to understand--without agreeing--why the people with whom you disagree hold their beliefs, which ones are inflexible and which are mutable.

Since January 2025.