Apparently I'm a virtue-signalling social justice warrior. So… what's wrong with that exactly?
I'm sure I'm not the first Fairfax journalist to be called these names. Our email addresses are on our articles so people feel free to – and often do – write nasty things to us about our stories. And we're on Twitter, too. Say no more.
More World News Videos
"Heil Trump, heil our people, heil victory"
Using Nazi propaganda, and describing white people as "children of the sun", alt-right leader Richard Spencer tells the National Policy Institute in Washington DC that with President-elect Donald Trump, their time has come.
And right now, or should I say alt-right now, there are some new phrases that seem coined to troll someone who is, or is perceived to be a liberal 'leftard'. Or in the case of a journalist, writing particular kinds of stories (say, about climate change or immigration/refugees).
These insults are quite clever, in a schoolyard-y way. Being told you're obviously virtuous and fighting for social justice sounds suspiciously like a compliment.
But the context in which the phrases arrive always makes clear they're meant to be derogatory.
And so you realise it's like being called 'brainiac' in the schoolyard. You're being bullied for appearing to be clever. For showing off. You're being mocked for apparently thinking you're changing the world with your 'well-meaning' values.
It's a reiteration of what happened to 'politically correct' in the 90s. On the face of it, not being arbitrarily mean to people, either deliberately or by accident, sounds like a good idea. But, now, of course, it has "gone mad", infecting the original phrase with tones of militant thought policing.
There is a sting to being accused of 'virtue signalling', a target that it does hit.
![Trolling for a living. Milo Yiannopoulos has gained notoriety for railing against feminists, Muslims and political ...](/web/20170226144938im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/4/g/9/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guhcee.png/1487677139719.jpg)
In a world of ice bucket challenges, Kony 2012 and the endless retweeting of causes and complaints, it's easier than ever to display your politics but no easier to actually do something about them. Which means there's a bigger gap between slogan and action, where hypocrisy lives.
But the phrase is not being used judiciously, to spotlight hypocrisy. It's being used in a barrage, to ridicule all with the temerity to draw attention to an injustice they themselves don't suffer (or rather, particular injustices, the sort that occupy liberals).
![Just for effect? People rallied at the 'Close Manus, Close Nauru, Bring Them Here!' rally ahead of World Refugee Day on ...](/web/20170226144938im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/m/d/8/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guhcee.png/1487677139719.jpg)
Others have argued that using 'virtue signalling' as a criticism is just demonising empathy.
It often is.
![Is all compassion just a sham? Some would have you believe so. An Iranian refugee detained on Manus Island for three ...](/web/20170226144938im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/n/q/g/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guhcee.png/1487677139719.jpg)
But that's just when it's used correctly.
Often it's used against someone who doesn't merely hold a 'virtuous' position, but also acts on it. Someone was recently attacked on social media as virtue-signalling for admitting to voluntarily looking after refugees in her home. There's no hint of hypocrisy there. It just is virtue.
![Victory for the trolls. Richard Spencer, white nationalist and 'alt-right' leader.](/web/20170226144938im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/y/7/q/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guhcee.png/1487677139719.jpg)
And even when someone is merely expressing an opinion about a cause, the insults don't really make sense. Only a tiny minority would claim compassion for, say, asylum seekers on Manus island, just so other people would think they're great.
Most people would genuinely have compassion. And to call someone a 'social justice warrior' to highlight that their voice is louder than their ability to actually make a difference, really just highlights how difficult it is to make a difference.
What's the alternative? Not to bother seeking change if it can't be done tomorrow, single-handedly? It's the ultimate libertarian position: I'm ok, or I might not be ok, but either way, sod the rest of you.
The logical end to 'social justice warrior' and 'virtue signalling' as insults is that no-one should go to church, or donate to charity, or even bother to vote, because each vote is just an empty 'badge of honour', a declaration of allegiance that, alone, achieves nothing.
For all their recent success in polls, there's an anti-democratic heart to the alt-right. They're much more comfortable as underdogs, railing against imagined oppression by a tyrannical liberal majority, even after they've proved their own political power.
They're natural trolls: under the bridge, complaining about the noisy trit-trotting above.
And beyond that, there is a great irony to using 'virtue-signalling' as an insult.
Most people who use it that way are themselves virtue-signalling. They're proclaiming themselves to be part of a group who've decided, as a political cause, not to put up with this loud leftist compassion any more. They're adopting the alt-right vocabulary to declare that they share this political awakening.
They're warriors for the cause. They're newly virtuous.
If only we had a handy insult for that.