We all have a cause and we believe that cause should be pre-eminent. No other cause has the same legitimacy. While our cause reflects a true moral calling, the rival cause merely reflects the idiosyncrasies of the adherent.
Every cause is liable to dismissal on that basis. Social activism is dismissed as a self-righteous crusade; religion a delusion for the impressionable; nationalism is populist tripe and sport mere entertainment for the masses. Any passion seems superficial and foolish if we cannot relate to the underlying purpose.
But we are not completely dismissive of the rival cause and we may be open to its cultural message. The unfamiliar cause often comes with unfamiliar flavours, rituals and behaviours which we find agreeable. But cultural plurality does not necessarily mean moral plurality: it does not mean we credit the rival cause with any moral authority.
Still, we may accept its moral standing if the cause remains within its lane. The progressive accepts religion within a secular framework. The patriot accepts liberalism within a nationalist framework. The football fan tolerates activism if their own club is not criticised. The rival cause is congenial when it poses no threat to our own.
So it is not accurate to say that we embrace our own cause and reject every other. Rather, we embrace the congenial cause and we reject the uncongenial cause. The congenial cause is not necessarily our personal passion, but it is consistent with that passion.
Everyone has a cause and everyone believes in the pre-eminence of that cause. However, we are magnanimous if others know their place.
Blaming the uncongenial campaign for signalling and cancellation
Let us return to basic principles: when we support a cause, we campaign for it. We promote it with virtue signalling and protect it with cancel culture. When the cause is congenial, this campaign is intuitive. It is common sense to pursue the right cause. It is common sense to pursue something consistent with the right cause. So the congenial campaign usually escapes our attention.
The odd result is that we only notice a campaign when we are unsympathetic to the cause. The uncongenial campaign marks our first conscious encounter with a moral crusade. It marks our first conscious encounter with virtue signalling and cancellation. We see these things, but we have no understanding of why they are occurring.
A campaign without context is an odd sight indeed. We observe energetic flag waving for no clear purpose. We observe a relentless quest to expunge that which is not obviously offensive. And since the unsympathetic campaign marks our first conscious encounter with this behaviour, we conclude it must have caused it. Something about that particular campaign lends itself to this unusual conduct. The uncongenial campaigner must have invented it.
In truth, signalling and cancellation exist everywhere and for every cause. But because we discovered these things in a specific context and find them odd for a specific reason, we do not perceive a universal phenomenon. Rather, our concerns are exclusively directed at the uncongenial cause.
Hence we conclude that the uncongenial cause created virtue signalling and cancel culture.
Uncongenial fervour
The strangeness of the uncongenial campaign causes us to perceive virtue signalling and cancel culture with an unaccustomed clarity.
Our discomfort commences when we observe that the virtue signaller appears to shed their individual characteristics and merge with their peers. What do a church congregation, a political protest and a football crowd have in common? They all seem to respond to a distinct collective rhythm. They chant in unison. They use the same parlance. They rally around the same symbols. From the sympathetic view point, we might say this is camaraderie. The less sympathetic view is that this is groupthink.
Of course, we would not regard our own virtue signalling as group thought. Indeed, we would not describe it as fervour at all. Since our own moral objectives are common sense, our passion is entirely rational. Those marching to the same beat do so in sensible solidarity. Mass signalling is barely noticed, let alone questioned. The patriot does not complain that there are too many national flags. The activist does not complain that there are too many rainbows. The football fan is not troubled by several thousand people wearing identical colours. Hence virtue signalling is alternately instinctive and repulsive: the determinative factor is our sympathy with the cause.
Our distrust reaches a peak when we encounter unsympathetic cancel culture. Devoid of context, cancel culture is shocking. It is a sign that the conformist mentality has reached a new stage of intolerance. Not only does the campaigner incessantly signal their views, they now require universal compliance. The person who does not conform is humiliated and isolated. And all this in the apparent pursuit of right.
And again, our own pursuit of cancellation is reasonable. It is a proportionate response to the danger we are attempting to avert. Hence we support cancellation in one context and denounce it in another. The conservative who decries political correctness is also aggrieved by the lenient justice system. They favour the death sentence for egregious offenders. It is difficult to conceive a more definitive form of cancellation, but our friend perceives no inconsistency. Cancel culture is alternately instinctive and repulsive: the determining factor is our sympathy with the cause.
The uncongenial campaign marks our first conscious encounter with virtue signalling and cancel culture and we do not like what we see. Through fresh eyes, we perceive the true nature of moral passion. Every campaigner believes that fervour is rational and driven by the inherent justice of their cause. That is one explanation for moral passion. But the bystander with no partiality to the cause is struck by the power of raw emotion. It occurs to them that moral fervour may be wholly or partially disconnected from reason. Hence there is a second explanation for moral fervour: that passion has a life of its own.
This danger is inherent in every campaign. It is a lesson for all humanity. But crucially, we have no insight into our own campaigning behaviour. We have already concluded that the uncongenial cause invented the idea of virtue signalling and cancel culture. And if they are responsible for these things, they must also be responsible for the problematic side of such conduct.
These conclusions are understandable. It is human nature to blame unwelcome discoveries on those we dislike and we have harboured animosity towards the uncongenial campaigner all along. The rival cause is a threat to our own values and we cannot understand the diversion of righteous energy towards it. Moreover, it is impossible to divorce our fear of moral passion from our fear of the foreign cause. Passion itself is not our problem: it is alien passion which leaves us cold.
Virtue signalling itself is not the problem. Cancel culture itself is not the problem. It is the combination of these things with an uncongenial cause that is the real origin of our fear and resentment.
Isamu Drayya, November 2022
NEXT: Virtue signalling and cancel culture under attack
isamu drayya 