Virtue Signalling or rational self interest?

The Guardian reading liberal elite virtue signal, but do they care?

Or is their virtue signalling and moral high ground, in itself, a result of rational, nay instinctive, self interest? I believe Singer’s analogy of the drowning boy could provide us with some insight into the mind of the average middle Englander. Singer asks us to imagine ourselves walking past a drowning child. The toddler, he tells us, is drowning in water not deep enough for the average adult to be required to swim, it is shallow. Singer argues that very few of us would deem it acceptable to continue walking past, and to ignore the drowning child’s screams for help on account of the fact that we do not want to get our designer clothes wet, or that we do not want to be late to a party, or a film screening.

We would be morally bound, Singer holds, to save the life of the drowning child. And indeed, that is because the life of the child is more valuable than an individual’s designer clothing or party attendance. Singer asks us then to expand our thinking. Every time we spend money or time on a luxury, we are, perhaps inadvertently, arguing that we would rather spend that time or money on a luxury good than on our fellow man, in much the same way that a man who ignores a drowning child to attend a party would.

When we walk into M&S, and tell a homeless man without a roof over his head that we don’t have any money to spare, but proceed to walk out with three crates of Stella, what message are we sending him? If actions speak louder than words, when we spend £50 on the latest edition of FIFA, £30 on a gram of ‘shardy ket’, or even £12 on a bottle of port, are we not all saying that we would rather spend our money, and our time, on our own pleasure than on the base needs of the weakest in our society?

I think we are.

Because indeed, the guardian reading leftist is never willing to help another if it causes any real detriment to himself. It is interesting to note the conspicuous lack of left wing protests during exam terms. Indeed, it is perhaps notable that my own ‘stunning and brave’ teenage activism came to a sudden and abrupt end when I reached the latter half of year 11, when I had to buckle down for my GCSE exams. The average left wing student gains a sense of belonging through their involvement with CDE, Decolonise the curriculum, and Extinction Rebellion, and of course, there is nothing wrong with this as a motivation for joining campaign groups, I joined them in my youth for similar reasons.

Collective virtue signalling is almost a form of kinship, it is a social anthropologist’s field day, but the minute we ask a leftist to help others at detriment to themselves, to hand large portions of their income over to the poorest in society, they politely, nay they rudely, refuse, just as the conservative voter who desires lower taxes does at the ballot box.

As individuals, the power for change is in our hands, capitalism provides us with phenomenal levels of consumer choice, but we choose not to make those choices. Time and time again, we choose ourselves over others, and we shall continue to do so, and as I grow older, and as I understand this better, the world stops being so black and white, and indeed, it becomes far greyer.

I once argued that good and bad people didn’t exist because good and evil didn’t exist, and that, even if good and evil did exist, freewill didn’t, and so, as a result man could not meaningfully be good or bad. I stand by both these arguments, but I do not believe they are up for debate any longer, at least not at our age. No educated person, unless they are religious (which is a belief system that cannot be argued against, for it is based on faith), is anything but a moral nihilist, or a determinist, and because these ideas are so accepted now, they are not even worthy of discussion, so no, I do not argue, any longer that good and bad people do not exist for these reasons.

I believe the fundamental nature of man is still up for discussion, is man altruistic (good) or self interested (bad)? I think it is clear that, when it comes down to it, each man is interested only in his own health, and perhaps, by extension, his family’s. The rest of the world can, as far as he is concerned, rot and burn.

To quote Ayn Rand:

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"
“I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"
To shrug.’”