Virtue Signaling Will Always Be a Loser’s Game. Character wins in the game of life.

Virtue signaling has taken over so much of modern social life that it has become its own form of secular religion, with its requisite hashtags informing the world you “stand with” whatever social justice topic of the day is trending. The faithful often seem angry, shouting in all caps that you should WEAR THE F*CKING MASK and SUPPORT UKRAINE! And BLM! Or whatever else CNN decides is most righteous.

I used to think that virtue signaling was just what self-righteous people do to cover up for their shortcomings. Like the guy who makes sure everyone sees how much tip he leaves behind, so he can feel good and pure about something even if he’s cheating on his wife on the side. And while that is likely true, it seems more and more that virtue signaling is in itself the new leftist religion. Failing to adhere to it could get you shot a la Squid Game, and like that show, the players don’t have a way out of the game. It’s a trap, and everyone loses in the end. In the religion of the leftist virtue signaler, just believing is not enough. You must actively shout your allegiance to the latest cause with the required hashtags, black Instagram squares, or the even more ubiquitous sign of social goodness and purity – the useless, but highly virtuous cloth face covering.

Of course, none of these symbols actually stand for anything real. We know the cloth masks don’t stop the spread of viruses. We know a hashtag is simply that, and nothing more. And while there are certainly many people who decided to take the coronavirus vaccines for what they believed to be for the good of their own health, we’re approaching a phase of the Covid era where people are lining up to get the booster shot because they belong to the religion of virtue and all that one must do to signal it. In 2022, virtue-signaling IS virtue.

If you look closely at the driving force behind the so-called social justice movements of today, the end goal is not to educate, instill value, or uplift the weak. The goal is to actively weaken and harm the strong. Those who behave this way do so because they have no understanding of how to build anyone up, so instead, they attack certain groups they perceive as having privilege. Like a toddler enraged that his brother got the bigger cookie, he drops his own cookie on the floor while attempting to steal his brother’s. So it is with the collectivist mind. They believe that if everyone can’t be rich, we should all be equally poor. It’s why they want to replace merit, achievement, skill and hard work with blanket “social justice” – not being self-aware enough to realize that trying to bring others down only makes you weaker, and more obviously so. And weakness is NOT a virtue. Neither is announcing your own virtue with a hashtag or a pointless face mask.

All of this is especially unsettling because the very causes the virtue signalers mindlessly support with ALL of their emotions, are in fact empty causes they can do nothing about. Which is exactly what sends them into a tailspin of following the next cause, and the one after that, and after that. It’s a never-ending race to the end of a losing game set up by a soulless system.

Our society can’t go on this way. Humans DO have souls, and thus we need real virtue, real religion, and a real God that isn’t beholden to a blue Twitter checkmark. Humans need substance and meaningful work, not instant gratification and social media followers. We also need to be able to deal with the real world, with all its many shortcomings. We must be able to withstand a storm and build a fortress in the midst of it, not run for a “safe space” any time the wind picks up. We don’t need “social justice” in America any more than we need more pills to pop. What we need is knowledge. Family. God. Friendship. Challenges. Adversity. Courage. Devotion. Work ethic. Deep, meaningful connections with others. These describe what gives a person his character, or lack thereof. And character, not virtue, is what is needed to win in the game of life.