The Bloody Hands Of Virtue Signallers by Daphna Rowe
There is a reason why history repeats itself and it’s not because we don’t learn from our mistakes. It’s because the desire to be perceived as good, to be accepted, is far more important to us. In the age of social media this couldn’t be more evident. Facts no longer matter. All that matters is the dopamine hit of acceptance through likes and followers.
If you are not familiar with the term virtue signalling, it is defined as ‘the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.’
Virtue signalling is rampant in the current Israel-Hamas war. Particularly on the left – a side I once stood with until I sadly realised, they are equally as full of shit as the right.
The left wants to be perceived as being anti-colonialism. They don’t care if Israel, in fact, is not a colonial state, that the term Palestine comes from the Romans when they exiled the Jews from Israel and Judea in 70 A.D. and renamed the land Syria Palaestina.
The left wants to be perceived as fighting apartheid. They don’t care if Israel, in fact, has no law segregating Jews from Arabs, that Arabs hold some of the highest positions in the government and military, that Arabs have full citizenship and enjoy equal rights like the right to vote, or that Arabs and Jews are friends and get married.
The left wants to be perceived as being against genocide. They don’t care if the Palestinian population has increased by 150% since 1948.
They care not one iota about the civilians on the ground – on either side – only how they are perceived by their peers. And they have blood on their hands.
When I was studying for my MSc in International Relations at the University of Bristol, my focus was on political psychology. I wanted to understand conflict resolution, the rise and fall of demagogues, and the psyche behind genocide and ethnic cleansing. What is it about human nature that allows for these atrocities to take place time and time again? My answer came through the book by Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report of the Banality of Evil.
As a Jew I found this book infuriating. As a student I found it liberating. Arendt argues that while observing the trial of Eichmann, one of the highest-ranking officials in the Nazi party, that the face of evil was not a monstrous, demonic sadistic one. But rather, a very boring one.
