This work began by accusing the reader of complicity in virtue signalling and cancel culture. Assuming the reader stayed around after that introduction, they will now see it was not an insult. To the contrary, every moral person shares that complicity.

In theory, morality is a personal matter. In practice, we feel an imperative to impose our views on others. We see that society is unjust. We see that society fails to protect what is vulnerable. This tells us that our peers cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

Hence the moral person is inevitably a busybody. They do not have the luxury of self-containment.  Our peers require vigilance and attentiveness. Constant signalling is required to ensure that the right values are understood. Prompt cancellation is needed when we stray off course. Core values are too important to leave to chance.

As a result, the moral person is unmoved by libertarianism. Freedom means the right to behave badly. It means the right to attack the vulnerable. And since these things are unacceptable in a moral society, the moral society can never be truly free. Intervention is always required.

We feel entitled to intervene because we have a strong sense of doing right. We understand subjectivity and we accept that every person has their definition of right. However, our own definition is special. It is not an opinion, it is not a choice: it is objectively compelling. Other people have causes, we have the truth. This is why any libertarian argument is unimpressive: one does not need freedom from truth. One does not need protection from justice.

The crucial point is that we do not see ourselves as having a cause. We do not see ourselves as having a campaign. We do not see ourselves as signalling or engaging in cancel culture. So when we observe others doing these things, we find it distinctly odd.

Perhaps we could tolerate unfamiliar virtue signalling: our peers are entitled to signal what they please. But since our own cause  is pre-eminent, any other is superfluous. The uncongenial signaller is not equally entitled to their view, they are less entitled to that view because they are advocating for something outside the core definition of right. We perceive an element of self-indulgence in their concern with peripheral matters. We can tolerate this idiosyncrasy, but we find it frivolous.

But when our peers begin engaging in their own form of cancel culture, we reach our limit. If we cannot understand uncongenial signalling, we certainly cannot understand why the same message should be imposed on others. We perceive a dangerous new encroachment on liberty.

These concerns go to the heart of every moral campaign. There is a legitimate question over how the balance should be struck between morality and freedom.  We do not need to turn every speech into a signalling exercise. We do not need to cast judgment on everything we see. We do not need to cancel every problem.  There is legitimate question over the extent to which we should live and let live. And as social connectivity grows and distant vulnerability recedes, this question is more important than ever.

But in truth, few are really interested in liberty. We all have our passions. We all feel the same imperative to impose our views on others. Given a chance, we would all do precisely that.

So the controversy over moral intervention is not about freedom at all. The person who complains about these things is pursuing another grievance: they are unhappy with the rise of an unfamiliar moral passion at the perceived expense of their own. The real complaint is not about virtue signalling or cancel culture. It is that we are signalling the wrong things. It is that we are cancelling the wrong things. It is that we are pursuing the wrong cause.

It would greatly simplify the discourse if we just said that directly.

_{Isamu Drayya, November 2022}