You Are What You Do
Say whatever you want. I’ll know who you really are by the way you behave.
(image created by the author using ChatGPT)
I don’t keep up with the news or current events in any real detailed way. I don’t trust mainstream media to give me objective news without bias, and I generally stay off of social media. As such, I am very selective about where I get my news. Even so, I am aware of the recent protests in Los Angeles in response to ICE activities, and how they (inevitably, I will argue) turned destructive and even violent. It seems that those protests shared some commonalities with other recent protests on college campuses related to Israel, Hamas, and Palestine. I believe that such events show a lot about the true character of the people participating in them.
We are all familiar with the phrase, “Actions speak louder than words.” The wisdom in that idea goes back millenia. It’s something taught in the Bible (1st century AD), and before that in the earliest Stoic philosophers (3rd - 2nd century BC), then even further back to Greek philosophy (5th - 4th century BC), and ancient Egypt (2400 - 2350 BC). The nice thing about historical wisdom is that it stands the test of time. I don’t need to defend the veracity of the idea. It’s simply true: Actions are more reflective of a person’s true character and personality than his or her words.
It seems that we have lost sight of this important idea, given all of the ideological capture and virtue signaling that is so prevalent in our current cultural climate. For the sake of clarity, let’s define those concepts so there is no confusion. Ideological capture occurs when a person’s loyalty to an ideological framework or identity overrides logic and reason, critical thinking, empathy, and consistent moral action. People who don’t like to think too hard are very vulnerable to ideological capture. The inherent lack of sophistication in the ideology and the rigidity of the narrative around it protects them from the uncomfortable complication of reality and nuance. It’s much more comfortable to just be told what to believe, keep things at a shallow surface level, and not have to deal with uncomfortable truths just a bit deeper down into reality. An additional problem is the self-righteousness that typically accompanies ideological capture, which then provides the justification for the almost inevitable unethical, even aggressive, behavior that often follows, all in the name of ideological purity.
Virtue signaling is an almost unavoidable off-shoot of ideological capture and the accompanying self-righteousness. Virtue signaling refers to publicly expressing opinions or displaying symbolic gestures primarily to demonstrate one's good character, moral correctness, or social alignment. Unfortunately, what is generally missing is any actual genuine or productive action to address whatever the issue is. We see this all the time when people change their social media profile picture to “support” the latest cause, put some sticker on their water bottles or cars, or show up at a rally or protest and carry a sign without really knowing what it means. Virtue signaling is all surface, but no substance: “Look at me and how good I am. Just don’t look too closely.”
The problem with ideological capture and virtue signaling is that a lot of noise is made, and a lot of resources can be burned through, without ever making any substantive improvements whatsoever. To the contrary, often they make things worse. The noise is easy, but real effort takes work. Claiming ideological superiority and heightened virtue often substitutes for genuine compassionate action. It’s a whole lot easier to show up for a protest than to actually do something that makes a difference, and yelling the same chant as the crowd doesn’t demand any mental energy. Meaningful action takes more effort, which is likely to be uncomfortable, than meaningless symbolic gestures or online declarations.
To make things even worse, righteous indignation often accompanies ideological capture and virtue signaling. The inherent hypocrisy is that, typically, those who are the most righteously indignant (ie, make the most noise) never had to endure the actual indignation that they are so “righteously” proclaiming against. It’s a whole lot easier to make a great deal of noise about something that you never actually had to live through yourself, just so you can feel good for how indignant you proclaim to be about it.
This kind of thing is prime fodder for the genuinely bad people who make up a very small, but undeniable and powerful, part of the population. Compassionate people are more vulnerable to manipulation, making them perfect targets for psychopaths. People with the dark tetrad personality traits seek out those who are easily manipulated, then use them for their own nefarious ends.
As I have described before, the dark tetrad personality traits refer to psychopathy (lack of empathy, impulsiveness, disregard for others), Machiavellianism (manipulation and exploitation of others for personal gain), narcissism (inflated self-importance, entitlement, excessive need for admiration), and sadism (deriving pleasure from the suffering or pain of others). People who have these personality traits are drawn to places where they can have the greatest impact with minimal risk to themselves. That’s why the internet is the perfect place for them to stir up trouble. So are college campuses, and protests.
Group think and group behaviors are powerful influencers. We are all vulnerable to behaviors within a group that we would never participate in alone or under a different influence. Humans are social creatures, very influenced by the behaviors of those around us. You may think that you are “independent and strong enough to think for yourself,” but research shows that you probably aren’t. Most of us quickly just follow the crowd. See Solomon Asch’s experiments on how likely we are to conform. Stanley Milgram’s experiments showed that we are incredibly vulnerable to authority, and we follow what we’re told to do, even if we know we are causing harm to others. Most disturbingly, the Stanford Prison Experiment showed that normal college students, randomly assigned, can become so intensely authoritarian and abusive, so quickly, that the study had to be canceled after only 6 days. An additional complicating factor is that humans have a very difficult time changing their minds about an issue they have already been convinced is true, even in the face of solid and undeniable proof to the contrary (see Dr. Gad Saad’s 2020 book, The Parasitic Mind).
This group think and group behavior problem, grounded in ideological capture and virtue signaling, exhibiting behaviors influenced by people with dark tetrad personalities, seems to have played out in campus protests regarding the Israeli / Hamas conflict. The antisemitism that was running amok on college campuses reached such a scale that it warranted hearings before Congress where a few presidents of elite universities were called to testify (arguably quite disastrously). The various campus protests included destruction of property, forced occupation of both public and private spaces, and posters and chants advocating violence, specifically (disturbingly) of a directly anti-semitic nature.
The most recent anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles are another example of this dark tetrad pattern. Supposedly speaking up to defend immigrants and oppose federal overreach, the protestors’ behaviors quickly devolved into arson, traffic blockages, and assaults. Purportedly organized around supporting immigrants, all that came of the protests has been destruction, chaos, and fear. Rather than promote positive change, they merely manifested in destructive exhibitions of tyrannical power, violence, and chaos, with nothing that could be considered authentic moral conviction.
These are clear demonstrations that compassionate engagement around a sensitive and complex moral issue is not what’s really going on in either case. I would argue that these protests are nothing more than ideological capture and virtue signaling that at best are empty platitudes, but are actually more likely just a cover for deviant dark tetrad behaviors. Ideological posturing, without the necessary foundation of true compassion, critical thinking, and appreciation of nuance, quickly descends to aggression and violence. The hypocrisy is so obvious that it almost avoids needing mention…almost. The fact that it keeps happening means that we have to keep talking about it.
Words are easy, but real and substantive actions are hard. So is true, authentic compassion. Of all the people involved in these “protests,” I have to wonder how many ever actually DO anything that truly matters for someone else in need? When was the last time one of them volunteered at a homeless shelter or a food pantry? Or even the humane society? When was just one time that someone gave up a close parking space to someone else, or held the door open for someone? Stopped to pick up a dropped book, or simply offered a kind word to a fellow human being?
Compassion that really matters isn’t hard, it just doesn’t get as much attention. I know your character by your actions, not your words. Don’t tell me anything. Show me who you really are.