JohnG
Senior Member
You got to try harder than that. You've just exaggerated my statement to it's most extreme to the point where it's silly. I did volunteer in a homeless shelter for a while. I did not break a nail doing it. Why did I do it? Because it was incredibly rewarding. I got a lot of out of it. I'm not sure I saved any lives. But I certainly helped quite a few of them out of some pretty horrific circumstances, like helping an illegal homeless immigrant acquire the AIDS medication she needed. But it cost me absolutely nothing. Not only did it cost me nothing, but it was pure benefit to me. It made me feel great about myself. Why did it stop? I'd done it already for a while. It got repetitive and a bit boring.
People can get benefits from doing things for others. What I don't think is that anybody would voluntarily sacrifice anything if there's nothing in it for them, emotionally.
Not sure if your making an "is altruism real" argument here or something else.
Heather McGee, author of "Sum of Us" cites an example I want to raise here. In a nutshell, When segregation was abolished in the 50's, townships drained their public swimming pools instead of integrating. So no one swam. You can apply this to health care, better social safety nets, etc...
So yes, your argument is true for those you criticize as "woke" - they want a better society for themselves by improving it for everyone.
What many see as "virtue signaling", is more often than not someone attempting to speak out on behalf of a better society.
If you want a better society by improving it for everyone you are improving it for yourself. So you are not sacrificing anything, which defeats your original argument. What you challenged was my statement that nobody will give up privileges if they risk losing something they care about having.
We live in a world of abundance. It wasn't long ago when we didn't. It has changed our behaviour. The cost of generosity has never been lower. But it still has a cost.
We now laugh at the silly township people draining the swimming pools. But I'd argue what sets them apart from the current woke is just the level of fear. The woke don't fear they risk losing anything by their talk. That's why they do it. We've developed intricate social games to keep poor people out. To allow us to say anti racist say but secure in the knowledge we're not likely to meet many.
My experiences is that today the left is a lot more racist than the right. The difference is that racist conservatives are honest about it. While the left is riddled with The racism of low expectations". They often treat anyone of colour as cultural tokens. Rather than real people.
But then again my experiences are from Sweden and Denmark. So hardly universal.
So if I understand you correctly, you are asserting that all white people are racist? That it manifests in different ways depending on your political alliance? Is that it?
Also -the swimming pool story is an analogy for Health Care, eliminating student debt, etc...