[posting here for crystallisation, comments]
For several years I have been pondering the mental states and real motives of those who engage in grievance politics. When I see people engage in this, I see a big disconnect between what they are communicating and what their real motives are, which are likely subconscious.
To begin, you have to establish people are fundamentally selfish. When a person goes for a night out, they are not thinking how much of a good time they can give everyone else, they are thinking how much of a good time they can have. They don't buy products to give purchasing power to the merchant, they do it because they value the product more than the money.
This doesn't mean that some people don't give consideration to other people. It means that people [largely] only engage in something when they see value in doing so, even if that value is seen as negative by most others, i.e. self-destructive behaviour. An example that may be given as non-selfish behaviour is a bodyguard who takes a bullet to save the life of their employer. But I would argue the bodyguard, using whatever reasoning, values doing so more than not doing so. A non-selfish reason for doing so would be valour. What people value can be dramatically different.
The second point to establish is that people's behaviour is geared towards extracting things that they value. Some people value cutting their arms open for attention or some other neurotic reason; some want to be rich; some want to feel they are a good person; some want access to sex with as many beautiful women as possible and so on. Sometimes that value can be abstract, such as those who self-deprecate by putting others first or those who make sacrifices for their children. I would argue that they only act in this way because they find value in doing so as non-material (the latter) and neurotic-self-destruction (the former). When I was younger I use to generally put other people before myself to such an extent that I would deliberately loose at games. I didn't do this because I was Jesus Christ on the cross. I had subconsciously reasoned my way into doing so. I didn't value discomforting others or be in any way dominant or competant. I found comfort in being second. That is what I valued.
The left (to be redefined later) project that the right (ditto) is fundamentally selfish and geared towards leeching value; while they, the left, are fundamentally unselfish and geared towards sharing value. However, if that were the case it would require large amounts of sacrifice (giving away what one values for the benefit of others). But we don't see this. You don't see those who push that narrative:
- marrying ugly, dysfunctional people
- giving more money to charity that conservatives (which they don't)
- hosting refugees in Beverley Hills or at Islington dinner parties
- giving up their child's place at private or selective schools for the disadvantaged
and so on.
The left are, I would argue, more interested in maintaining (rather than sacrificing) what they value. But what they value tends to differ somewhat and give the illusion of sacrifice within current cultural narratives if not closely analysed.
The third point to establish is the physiological aspect of human behaviour. Engaging in activities and behaviours changes an individual's biochemistry. Some of these changes are organic (or natural) and promote well-being and cognitive-emotional balance; while others are unnatural and cause imbalance. Examples of activities that promote earned/organic changes in biochemistry are having fun with friends, accomplishing goals, helping others, excercising and so on. While activities such as masturbating to pornography, playing computer games and taking drugs convince the brain to change the body's biochemistry in ways that are not earned and wire the brains in ways which are not conducive to operating in real-world situations that promote balance and happiness. The more the activity or behviour is engaged in the more serious the imbalance and depression.
In the case of playing computer games, the gamer values the release of dopamine and/or other chemicals to get a high; and depending on the nature of the game may gain a false sense of achievement for having done nothing more than move a few bytes around in a way that is of no use to anyone. Playing games chronically leads to a state in which the gamer gets lower highs, may start playing more, seeks more games; and all the while the unearned highs and sense of achievement grate against the gamer's real-world needs and causes depression. This is a Pavlovian response. The individual finds a shortcut to get things they value: images of beautiful women, dramatic battles, climbing gaming hierarchies, the release of endorphins etc. But the stimuli don't warrant it and the individual gets caught in a negative feedback loop. It's very easy to surf on to TitAndBumTube.net, take drugs, play World of Worldcraft; it's also very easy to signal your virtue.
Virtue signaling causes a profound shift in people. For those particularly enraged by grievance narratives, it causes obvious changes in body language, visibly unbalanced behaviour and some form of screeching. For the moderate, the changes are less obvious. They will often lift their head (looking down on you), the tone of their voice will go high (speaking down to you) and typically go down and then up as they finish what they are saying. This is their way of trying to establish themselves above you in a hierarchy of virtue. It's as primitive as giving someone a smackdown in a physical dominance hierarchy. All this amounts to considerable changes in physiology. Just as the place of a gorilla in a dominance hierarchy changes the colour of his back in a way that is physically and mentally intoxicating, the virtue signaler is subconsciously chasing the highs that come with convincing your brain it's doing good, while doing nothing.
A virtue signaler is someone who places a considerable weight upon feeling good about themselves and appearing like a good person to others. Thus, climbing the virtue hierarchy. A deeply researched 2016 paper by Jordan et. al. investigating the motives for moral outrage found, as summerised in the New York Times:
...that expressing moral outrage can serve as a form of personal advertisement … Why would a selfless tendency like moral outrage result from the “selfish” process of evolution? One important piece of the answer is that expressing moral outrage actually does benefit you, in the long run, by improving your reputation.
Virtue signaling is an attempt to gain the value of feeling good about one's self and appearing virtuous without having to sacrifice anything one values.
Drugs, pornography, virtue signaling and gaming all offer the individual quick access to biochemical highs and respectively:
Drugs: escaping reality (drug addicts often come from abusive backgrounds)
Pornography: access to beautiful women (porn addicts often have little access to women)
Gaming: escaping reality (gaming addicts often suffer from isolation and hopelessness)
Virtue signaling: feeling good about one's self (virtue signaling addicts tend to be selfish people who expect others or society to make the sacrifices while they walk off with the moral high ground; they come from backgrounds of personal shame and self-loathing as we are seeing with the slew of virtue signalers caught up in harassment scandals).
One aspect of virtue signaling and the left that has confused me for some time is why wealthy people would support redistributive and grievance politics while engaging in virtue signaling. I believe that, minus the often seen hypocrisy (tax avoidance, sexual harassment etc.), of such people; once you are a wealthy, emotional, creative actor like Matt Damon, the value of chasing the luxury of feeling and being seeing as virtuous (purely selfish) outweighs the value of having more money than you know what to do with. While for Donald Trump, feeling or being seen as good has little value over accumulating more wealth. It all depends on what individual's personally value. In such cases virtue signaling is a luxury and only chasing further personal value.
Another observation is that I don't think that those who promote grievance narratives actually want them to be fixed. This would remove the short-cut virtue signaling provides and it's why we are seeing virtue signalers resort to more fringe causes like “virtuous pedophiles”, consensual necrophilia, four years olds' rights to LGBTQ education, the proximity of a man's knees to each other while sitting on the subway… It would also remove the excuses for the lack of value in the lives of those who have not put in the required work to acquire such value. A key point that I won't go into now is that grievance narratives are used as the reason for wealth redistribution. This is some people's survival strategy and it is extremely selfish.
The proof of this can be seen in the disconnect between how the left treats their inherent victims who agree or say noting compared to those who disagree with their methods, narratives and goals. The left are so quick to shout "sexist" when a female Labour MP is given a challenge magically disappear or applaud at the jubilation of Margaret Thatcher's death and the prior calls for it; so quick to start shouting "coon", "porch money", "uncle Tom" when a Ben Carson, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Tommy Sotomayer... doesn't agree with them; so quick to shout "anti-Muslim extremist" at Maajid Nawaz who says all the killing and violence in the Quran needs to be excised; ban the UKIP LGBT group from the London gay pride march as they don't fit in...
The left hates no one more than their those they cast as inherent victims when they dare disagree with communism, socialism, to-the-wire social democracy or their grievance narratives. The left really don't care about these issues, their narrative is instead one of a collective subconscious that seeks to reorganise society based on a grievance hierarchy as opposed to a competence hierarchy or dominance hierarchy, which they are unable to distinguish between.
The Left and The Right
The political spectrum is a nonsense, which belongs in the realm of early modern misunderstandings such as spontaneous generation. What we are told are the far-right and the far-left almost always have more in common with each other and even the center than they do with libertarians, fiscal conservatives and voluntrists; all of whom are typically plotted as far-right. The political spectrum attempts to plot any way of looking at everything on a x-y axis and fails miserably. Those who are in favour of small government are placed towards the far-right on virtue of that desire, yet when you move further right you are magically told you come across people who want giant state intervention, socialised health-care and high taxes. Further, under the veneer of mainstream Western politics, you'll find many who vote for left parties hold considerable social conservative views. The whole thing does not add up and is marred by incoherent principals.
There is however an x-y axis that perfectly explains the two overarching that are polar opposites. That is a spectrum between grievance and dominance.
At the extent of grievance you will find people who want society to be arranged by how much of a victim you can be portrayed as by those who have managed to climb to the top of the hierarchy. This has been dubbed “the victimhood pyramid”. Their leader is the ultimate victim and they will redistribute wealth (and probably other things people value) based upon grievances, real or imagined. However, such a society would be so weak and regressive in every sphere that it would quickly be taken over. The other alternative is to do what the few societies that were highly organised around grievance narratives did: install some of the most brutal dominance hierarchies ever seen and start eradicating those who don't agree with you. I'm talking about the communists. That such things happened almost every time a far-grievance, virtue signaling movement came to power again shows they don't care about anything they say they do care about.
At the extent of dominance you will find people who want society to be arranged by those who have the might to do so. Their leader is the ultimate strong man. There aren't many people who actually want this, including those who are cast as far-right. One culture that was organised in a similar way was the Viking culture. I would put Hitler in the center between dominance and grievance as his philosophy was so coloured with both; favouring hard rule while complaining of the grievances of the German people and promoting their dominance, not through their ability to be there, but holding them their in lieu of their identity. The latter is the very thesis of those the mainstream media has only recently been able to label “far-left”.
There is an alternative to organising society based on grievances or dominance - competence - the organisation of society around people who earn their place by exchanging value. Those that produce the most value rise to the top. When it arose as an organising force is society it created incredible wealth over what came before it.
For several years I have been pondering the mental states and real motives of those who engage in grievance politics. When I see people engage in this, I see a big disconnect between what they are communicating and what their real motives are, which are likely subconscious.
To begin, you have to establish people are fundamentally selfish. When a person goes for a night out, they are not thinking how much of a good time they can give everyone else, they are thinking how much of a good time they can have. They don't buy products to give purchasing power to the merchant, they do it because they value the product more than the money.
This doesn't mean that some people don't give consideration to other people. It means that people [largely] only engage in something when they see value in doing so, even if that value is seen as negative by most others, i.e. self-destructive behaviour. An example that may be given as non-selfish behaviour is a bodyguard who takes a bullet to save the life of their employer. But I would argue the bodyguard, using whatever reasoning, values doing so more than not doing so. A non-selfish reason for doing so would be valour. What people value can be dramatically different.
The second point to establish is that people's behaviour is geared towards extracting things that they value. Some people value cutting their arms open for attention or some other neurotic reason; some want to be rich; some want to feel they are a good person; some want access to sex with as many beautiful women as possible and so on. Sometimes that value can be abstract, such as those who self-deprecate by putting others first or those who make sacrifices for their children. I would argue that they only act in this way because they find value in doing so as non-material (the latter) and neurotic-self-destruction (the former). When I was younger I use to generally put other people before myself to such an extent that I would deliberately loose at games. I didn't do this because I was Jesus Christ on the cross. I had subconsciously reasoned my way into doing so. I didn't value discomforting others or be in any way dominant or competant. I found comfort in being second. That is what I valued.
The left (to be redefined later) project that the right (ditto) is fundamentally selfish and geared towards leeching value; while they, the left, are fundamentally unselfish and geared towards sharing value. However, if that were the case it would require large amounts of sacrifice (giving away what one values for the benefit of others). But we don't see this. You don't see those who push that narrative:
- marrying ugly, dysfunctional people
- giving more money to charity that conservatives (which they don't)
- hosting refugees in Beverley Hills or at Islington dinner parties
- giving up their child's place at private or selective schools for the disadvantaged
and so on.
The left are, I would argue, more interested in maintaining (rather than sacrificing) what they value. But what they value tends to differ somewhat and give the illusion of sacrifice within current cultural narratives if not closely analysed.
The third point to establish is the physiological aspect of human behaviour. Engaging in activities and behaviours changes an individual's biochemistry. Some of these changes are organic (or natural) and promote well-being and cognitive-emotional balance; while others are unnatural and cause imbalance. Examples of activities that promote earned/organic changes in biochemistry are having fun with friends, accomplishing goals, helping others, excercising and so on. While activities such as masturbating to pornography, playing computer games and taking drugs convince the brain to change the body's biochemistry in ways that are not earned and wire the brains in ways which are not conducive to operating in real-world situations that promote balance and happiness. The more the activity or behviour is engaged in the more serious the imbalance and depression.
In the case of playing computer games, the gamer values the release of dopamine and/or other chemicals to get a high; and depending on the nature of the game may gain a false sense of achievement for having done nothing more than move a few bytes around in a way that is of no use to anyone. Playing games chronically leads to a state in which the gamer gets lower highs, may start playing more, seeks more games; and all the while the unearned highs and sense of achievement grate against the gamer's real-world needs and causes depression. This is a Pavlovian response. The individual finds a shortcut to get things they value: images of beautiful women, dramatic battles, climbing gaming hierarchies, the release of endorphins etc. But the stimuli don't warrant it and the individual gets caught in a negative feedback loop. It's very easy to surf on to TitAndBumTube.net, take drugs, play World of Worldcraft; it's also very easy to signal your virtue.
Virtue signaling causes a profound shift in people. For those particularly enraged by grievance narratives, it causes obvious changes in body language, visibly unbalanced behaviour and some form of screeching. For the moderate, the changes are less obvious. They will often lift their head (looking down on you), the tone of their voice will go high (speaking down to you) and typically go down and then up as they finish what they are saying. This is their way of trying to establish themselves above you in a hierarchy of virtue. It's as primitive as giving someone a smackdown in a physical dominance hierarchy. All this amounts to considerable changes in physiology. Just as the place of a gorilla in a dominance hierarchy changes the colour of his back in a way that is physically and mentally intoxicating, the virtue signaler is subconsciously chasing the highs that come with convincing your brain it's doing good, while doing nothing.
A virtue signaler is someone who places a considerable weight upon feeling good about themselves and appearing like a good person to others. Thus, climbing the virtue hierarchy. A deeply researched 2016 paper by Jordan et. al. investigating the motives for moral outrage found, as summerised in the New York Times:
...that expressing moral outrage can serve as a form of personal advertisement … Why would a selfless tendency like moral outrage result from the “selfish” process of evolution? One important piece of the answer is that expressing moral outrage actually does benefit you, in the long run, by improving your reputation.
Virtue signaling is an attempt to gain the value of feeling good about one's self and appearing virtuous without having to sacrifice anything one values.
Drugs, pornography, virtue signaling and gaming all offer the individual quick access to biochemical highs and respectively:
Drugs: escaping reality (drug addicts often come from abusive backgrounds)
Pornography: access to beautiful women (porn addicts often have little access to women)
Gaming: escaping reality (gaming addicts often suffer from isolation and hopelessness)
Virtue signaling: feeling good about one's self (virtue signaling addicts tend to be selfish people who expect others or society to make the sacrifices while they walk off with the moral high ground; they come from backgrounds of personal shame and self-loathing as we are seeing with the slew of virtue signalers caught up in harassment scandals).
One aspect of virtue signaling and the left that has confused me for some time is why wealthy people would support redistributive and grievance politics while engaging in virtue signaling. I believe that, minus the often seen hypocrisy (tax avoidance, sexual harassment etc.), of such people; once you are a wealthy, emotional, creative actor like Matt Damon, the value of chasing the luxury of feeling and being seeing as virtuous (purely selfish) outweighs the value of having more money than you know what to do with. While for Donald Trump, feeling or being seen as good has little value over accumulating more wealth. It all depends on what individual's personally value. In such cases virtue signaling is a luxury and only chasing further personal value.
Another observation is that I don't think that those who promote grievance narratives actually want them to be fixed. This would remove the short-cut virtue signaling provides and it's why we are seeing virtue signalers resort to more fringe causes like “virtuous pedophiles”, consensual necrophilia, four years olds' rights to LGBTQ education, the proximity of a man's knees to each other while sitting on the subway… It would also remove the excuses for the lack of value in the lives of those who have not put in the required work to acquire such value. A key point that I won't go into now is that grievance narratives are used as the reason for wealth redistribution. This is some people's survival strategy and it is extremely selfish.
The proof of this can be seen in the disconnect between how the left treats their inherent victims who agree or say noting compared to those who disagree with their methods, narratives and goals. The left are so quick to shout "sexist" when a female Labour MP is given a challenge magically disappear or applaud at the jubilation of Margaret Thatcher's death and the prior calls for it; so quick to start shouting "coon", "porch money", "uncle Tom" when a Ben Carson, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Tommy Sotomayer... doesn't agree with them; so quick to shout "anti-Muslim extremist" at Maajid Nawaz who says all the killing and violence in the Quran needs to be excised; ban the UKIP LGBT group from the London gay pride march as they don't fit in...
The left hates no one more than their those they cast as inherent victims when they dare disagree with communism, socialism, to-the-wire social democracy or their grievance narratives. The left really don't care about these issues, their narrative is instead one of a collective subconscious that seeks to reorganise society based on a grievance hierarchy as opposed to a competence hierarchy or dominance hierarchy, which they are unable to distinguish between.
The Left and The Right
The political spectrum is a nonsense, which belongs in the realm of early modern misunderstandings such as spontaneous generation. What we are told are the far-right and the far-left almost always have more in common with each other and even the center than they do with libertarians, fiscal conservatives and voluntrists; all of whom are typically plotted as far-right. The political spectrum attempts to plot any way of looking at everything on a x-y axis and fails miserably. Those who are in favour of small government are placed towards the far-right on virtue of that desire, yet when you move further right you are magically told you come across people who want giant state intervention, socialised health-care and high taxes. Further, under the veneer of mainstream Western politics, you'll find many who vote for left parties hold considerable social conservative views. The whole thing does not add up and is marred by incoherent principals.
There is however an x-y axis that perfectly explains the two overarching that are polar opposites. That is a spectrum between grievance and dominance.
At the extent of grievance you will find people who want society to be arranged by how much of a victim you can be portrayed as by those who have managed to climb to the top of the hierarchy. This has been dubbed “the victimhood pyramid”. Their leader is the ultimate victim and they will redistribute wealth (and probably other things people value) based upon grievances, real or imagined. However, such a society would be so weak and regressive in every sphere that it would quickly be taken over. The other alternative is to do what the few societies that were highly organised around grievance narratives did: install some of the most brutal dominance hierarchies ever seen and start eradicating those who don't agree with you. I'm talking about the communists. That such things happened almost every time a far-grievance, virtue signaling movement came to power again shows they don't care about anything they say they do care about.
At the extent of dominance you will find people who want society to be arranged by those who have the might to do so. Their leader is the ultimate strong man. There aren't many people who actually want this, including those who are cast as far-right. One culture that was organised in a similar way was the Viking culture. I would put Hitler in the center between dominance and grievance as his philosophy was so coloured with both; favouring hard rule while complaining of the grievances of the German people and promoting their dominance, not through their ability to be there, but holding them their in lieu of their identity. The latter is the very thesis of those the mainstream media has only recently been able to label “far-left”.
There is an alternative to organising society based on grievances or dominance - competence - the organisation of society around people who earn their place by exchanging value. Those that produce the most value rise to the top. When it arose as an organising force is society it created incredible wealth over what came before it.