Thread by @eaton

"Woke" is absolutely the new "virtue signal" — a phrase that had a particular specific meaning in a particular circle, but was then yoinked by reactionaries who wanted some _other_ way to say "I really dislike other people trying to be more decent than I want to be."

https://twitter.com/orlandosentinel/status/1385581448363716608

The implication of the reactionary use of both phrases is that no one is sincerely concerned about other people; _everyone_ is just posturing and angling for rhetorical high ground; there is no such thing as sincere conviction or concern.

Always telling on themselves, I guess?

There's a kind of "embrace the vice" vibe that's always bubbled under the surface of conservative movement ideology; it was most obvious in economics, where the article of faith was that Markets and Freedom magically transformed individuals' avarice into a collective good.

Gordon Gekko's iconic "Greed is Good" speech in Wall Street summed up that view of the world, but at the time most everyone regarded it as a horrible picture of rationalized vice.

But that "Actually, really, vice IS a good thing!" rationale soaked into more and more of the movement. The Randian "no one truly cares for others, they only receive psychological benefits from pretending they do" view of human relations amplified it as well.

Eventually everything from helping the poor to preserving the environment to just "not being a shit to your next-door neighbor" could be framed as a disingenuous — naive, even! — refusal to engage with the way the world *REALLY* works.

This is the logical endpoint — a movement that explicitly celebrates vice and turns any celebration of virtue or care into an insult. It's pretty wild.