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***THREAD***

Status, Virtue-Signaling, and the Ascent of Liberalism: Towards a General Theory of Modern Politics, w/ Some Thoughts on the Road Ahead for the Right

Right-wingers often gripe about the prevalence of “virtue-signaling” on the left: the practice of adopting an

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opinion, or giving expression to it, as means of showing off one’s superior moral qualities. The practice is as widespread as it is annoying to all who do not partake in leftwing moral economy in which virtue-signaling serves as currency.

It’s easy for the right-leaning

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person in his annoyance to dismiss virtue-signaling as only the latest lamentable trend among his political adversaries, here today and hopefully gone tomorrow. This would be a mistake. It is my position in this essay that virtue-signaling is deeply rooted in human nature,

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has existed since time immemorial, and largely accounts for the ascent and dominance of modern liberalism—and, further, that without understanding these things, and using them to our own advantage, the right has little hope of being anything more than a persistently weak and

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ineffectual voice of opposition, scarcely if ever attaining power.

Virtue-signaling is closely intertwined with status. Status is deeply important to humans, as it is to our closest primate relatives and to many other animals. We have every bit as much of a pecking-order

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as do barnyard chickens—and this has been true of every society and community, in every culture, and in every era of history. Status is not a synonym of wealth or income, though it is closely related to these things: it is an overall gauge of how you rank in the eyes of

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your peers, an index of who defers to you and who expects you to defer to them. You encounter it on the playground, in the office, in your friend groups, and you see it here on Twitter. It is everywhere—it is an inseparable part of human psychology.

Being status-driven

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creatures, we are acutely aware of our status and we do things to enhance our standing in the eyes of others. Even the lowliest criminal or drug-addict, even the dirtiest prostitute, is aware of, and cares about, their own status, and takes steps to manage it among whatever

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peer group they call their own.

The things that enhance status are fairly consistent throughout history and across cultures: wealth, strength, beauty, and many other things. The source of status with which this essay is chiefly concerned, however, is what may broadly be

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called “virtue.” There are certain virtues that are always expected of a high-status individual: he is happy, he is friendly, he is fair, he is generous, he is not selfish. Consider the importance of “hospitality” in both ancient and contemporary cultures: the man who opens

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his door to his guests, even to strangers, and gives liberally of food and drink at his table, is the high-status, natural leader of men. He is the lord of the manor, whom people follow into battle.

The virtues that enhance status are constant throughout history and rooted

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in human nature, likely rooted even in our DNA. The kings and lords of old are a distant memory, but the virtues that were currency then are still currency now: the generous, selfless, and fair man is a man with good reputation, a man of high status; the stingy, selfish,

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and grasping man is a man of low status.

When a liberal engages in so-called “virtue-signaling” you can witness the same process play out as it did among the Viking war bands, among the Bedouin tribesmen in the desert, and among every other culture long since buried and

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forgotten. The opinions that enhance a liberal’s status are those that display the virtues we are genetically hard-wired to admire.

Take any liberal position and you will see it: almost all of them are framed around generosity, compassion, openness, and largeness of soul.

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The liberal extends a helping hand to all need it: the poor, the oppressed, the despised, the shunned. The spirit of liberalism is that of the medieval popes washing the feet of beggars.

To any successful, high-functioning middle class person, the incentives to be liberal

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are extraordinarily high. These are people who value and depend upon their reputation: they must be seen as morally upright and admirable. The slate of opinions that constitute contemporary liberalism gives them this outward persona in a neat and convenient package: they

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favor the advancement of women, they are not prejudiced against minorities, they are open and accepting of people of all walks of life, they are generous towards the poor, etc. If a person is liberal they are immediately signaling to the world that they adhere to the same

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set of virtues that people in all time and places have esteemed and admired.

Whether the policies that arise out of liberalism are actually good and effective is a largely unrelated question. To the average high-functioning, high-status liberal it doesn’t much matter if

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the “safe injection site” he supports actually causes more people to become drug addicts or to die of overdoses—for the policy and its consequences have little impact on his own life. What matters to him is that he has supported, and has been seen to support, an ostensibly

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generous and compassionate policy.

The general disconnect between the moral framework of contemporary liberalism and the actual real-world impact of liberal policies, is one of the chief problems of the current political era. The fact that those who benefit socially from

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liberal policies are largely shielded from, and therefore indifferent to, the effects of their failure means there has been very little incentive to correct them.

Those who have become aware of liberal policy failures will naturally be drawn towards the political right.

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But in doing so they face a dilemma: on the one hand, they don’t want to support policies that are destructive and damaging to society, but on the other they don’t want to appear greedy, selfish, and uncaring, which their right-wing beliefs might make them seem. The choice

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they face is to keep their beliefs quiet and private, while maintaining a more or less liberal façade, or to throw caution to the wind and accept the damage to their status that an open display of right-wing views inevitably brings.

High-functioning, high-status

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middle-class right-wingers are more likely to take the former path, whereas low-status, working-class people are more likely to take the latter. It is not that low-status people are unconcerned with status: only that they have largely given up on, or never participated in,

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the middle-class status rat-race. Among their peers, being a boisterous, crass, right-winger might even enhance their status, just as killing someone can enhance the status of a street thug among his confederates, even though it lowers it in the eyes of the rest of society.

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And this brings us to the phenomenon of right-wing populism.

The right-wing populist movement is largely a movement of low-status and lower-class individuals. Understanding this is essential to understand both its appeal and successes, and also its limitations.

The moral

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aesthetic of right-wing populism is the direct opposite of that of liberalism. Rather than taking pains demonstrate conventional virtues, the right-wing populists openly flout them, and often do so with enthusiasm. Hostility to immigration is a good example. To open your

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doors to immigrants signals generosity and compassion, whereas closing them signals selfishness and stinginess. The right-wing populists are completely indifferent to the appearance of the latter, and even revel in it: the slogan “America first” is an explicit embrasure

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of selfishness, without even a veneer of the sort of virtues that typically win admiration among others.

Again, it’s an unrelated question whether a less-generous immigration policy would actually be preferable. What matters for the purposes of the present essay is its

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moral aesthetic.

The most salient policy preferences and opinions of right-wing populism are all of this nature—they all either deliberately flout liberal moral norms or are indifferent to them. If liberals are guilty of virtue-signaling, one could almost accuse the right
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of “vice-signaling.” Let the drug-addict perish! Lock up the criminal and throw away the key! Deport all the illegal immigrants and halt the immigration of non-Christians! Keep our society white! None of these positions signal the presence of any sort of virtue in the

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person holding them—and this is true even if one agrees to some extent with the policy proposals in question: maybe we do need harsher punishments for criminals and less immigration.

Aside from policy proposals—of which right-wing populism has relatively few—the general

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rhetoric of the right seems almost calculated to offend the sensibilities of the high-status, high-IQ, high-functioning middle classes. Conspiracy theories are legion, each one more ridiculous than the last: Bill Gates wants to put a chip in you and make you eat bugs; the

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covid vaccines are a plot to depopulate the earth; the Klaus Schwab and the WEF are trying to take over governments and rule the world; pedophiles are lurking under ever bed; etc. The embracing of Vladimir Putin and his murderous war in Ukraine belongs in the same category:
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a deliberate flouting of middle-class moral norms.

To understand why the right has gone in this direction you need to understand who the right are. The right has come to be dominated by low-status males who are resentful and envious towards the high-functioning

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middle-class people who dominate society, with their charmed lives and proper opinions. Their politics are a cultural rebellion against the humiliating sneers and condescension they perceive at every turn. They are the little people, the deplorables, the uncouth denizens of
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fly-over country who attract little attention or respect, and less deference.

here are many such people, and consequently right-wing populism has become a powerful force, electing no less than a President of the United States. Yet its failure to attract the support of the

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successful, status-conscious middle classes is a fatal limitation. The people who constitute this movement are not natural leaders and are not fit to govern. Their inevitable fate is to be little more than mosquitos buzzing around and annoying an ever-ascendant liberalism.

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If good fortune or freak-accident happens to put them in power, as happened during the presidency of Donald Trump, then the middle-class politicians will work tirelessly to stifle their effectiveness and remove them from office at the first opportunity.

To be successful,

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any political movement must be able to attract the high-functioning, status-conscious, middle classes. To win their support, it must give them something they can be proud of, something compatible with their virtue and their high status. If we are to refashion the right into
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a successful political force, we must bear this in mind and build it into every one of our opinions and policy positions. We must craft a political ideology that makes those who adhere to it appear virtuous. In other words, we must engage in virtue-signaling ourselves.

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Some right-wing policies can be reframed in this way with relative ease. School choice, for example, can be framed as helping kids from disadvantaged families get the best education possible and putting control into the hands of parents. Crime-fighting measures can be

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construed in moral terms: we’re making our cities safe for people to raise their families. We oppose lockdowns because it’s cruel to prevent people from earning a living or to prevent children from socializing and learning normally.

To some extent the right must adopt

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liberal elements in our own policies—and must do so with sincerity. In a prosperous society we must find a way of ensuring all have access to a reasonable baseline of healthcare. There must be adequate funding for schools, parks, and public infrastructure. We must conserve

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the environment.

Libertarianism has even less potential appeal than populism. The moral aesthetic of libertarianism, with its explicit exaltation of selfishness and indifference to the welfare of others, is so unappealing that even most low-status people reject it.

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Libertarian policies might actually make a lot of sense in many cases, but presenting them within the moral framework of libertarian ideology cripples their potential. To win popular support for a policy you must frame it in terms of the age-old moral values hard-wired in

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our minds. If you treat people as if they are blank slates or philosophical abstractions you will fail every single time.

The challenge to build a viable right-wing movement is a big one. Liberalism has a major inherent advantage, rooted in human nature. For this reason

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some version of it will always be either dominant near-dominant. A right-wing movement, on the other hand, must be constructed with the greatest thought and care even to contend for power. But right-wing movements have succeeded in the past, and the policy failures of

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liberalism will ultimately favor it. Considering the boldness with which the left is now subverting our education system, undermining law-and-order on our streets, and ruining public finances, it’s imperative that we put all of our effort into building a viable

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alternative. I regret to say, however, that the current framework of our movement needs to be largely scrapped.

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If you’ve read this far, I thank you for your patience. I’d like briefly to thank two people who helped shape the views you have just read: @RichardHanania and @tradsperger. If you don’t already follow them I heartily recommend that you do so.

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