We’re not talking about individual choice but an inherent ir/rationality in censorious behavior.
Vast majority of the consumers probably make pragmatic rather than idealistic consumption choices. Eg when you source a new iPhone, you source certain unethical labor practices. When you make use of the US dollar, you make use of some amount of atrocities that built its international purchasing power (eg any of the petrodollar wars). I bet those rarely bother even the most so-called “idealistic” consumers because a) it is a hard calculus to compute b) it is impossible to live when every “impure” thing is removed from use.
The difference with public content hosting is being able to twist arms to make them take down stuff and conform to an image of virtuousness which we narcissistically and psuedo-religiously identify with. It is not about the real damage the contents pose, it is our intolerance to being seen as a “person who can use such sites”. The threat is to our confirmation bias, in this case the confirmation of an idea that there is a clear right and wrong and we are definitely right.
I'm confused. I don't see the problem. What's the difference between the image of virtue and just virtue?
If the majority of people believe that images of virtuousness are what they want, then that's just what they want. People aren't computing the outcome, their ethics are based on appearances and always have been. The internet doesn't change that fact. Whether it was in the middle ages or the post-industrial period or today, virtue has always been performative. So I don't really see what you think your argument demonstrates.
The enlightenment concept of free speech is likely a minority viewpoint among the people of the world. However I also think it is the correct view and that corporations or governments looking to censor speech are infringing on human rights, and believe in fighting for it the same as I would fight against racism, slavery, religious discrimination, authoritarianism, and so on. Just because a lot of people believe something is ok does not make it right.
> What's the difference between the image of virtue and just virtue?
What’s the difference between a real car and a perfect cardboard replica? One has functionality and interiority. The other is just exteriority.
In the King Midas story, he wants everything to be mindlessly golden and thus turns them into unusable shiny crap. He got the golden exterior alright, with none of the real goldenness, goodness they would afford him.
Your example is a bit facile. A cardboard car does not function as a car does. It sounds almost like you are saying something but you never explain exactly what’s wrong with performative virtue.
But you have to define what is virtuous before you can claim that performative virtue is “fake”. The young people of today are no less virtuous than their elders, despite the fact that their elders (like virtually every generation before them) complain that they are immoral.
But "performative virtue" is--definitionally--fake. If it were real, it would just be "virtue". (And similarly, "political correctness" is something not quite correct--otherwise it would just be "correctness"!)
It's an actor "performing" as a character for a few hours, and then reverting back to their original personality.
> But you have to define what is virtuous before you can claim that performative virtue is “fake”.
No, strictly speaking you don't have to define anything. Whatever virtue is, it's consistently that. "Performative virtue" is inconsistent, often hypocritical, and therefore inauthentic.
> The young people of today are no less virtuous than their elders...
I can't speak to virtue in general, but with regards to duplicity it does seem like there's increasingly more of it:
1) young people still have access to whatever methods of duplicity old generations had, and can additionally virtue signal on social media on an unprecedented scale.
2) it seems like it's simply becoming acceptable to lie. Politicians will directly contradict their own video evidence, multiple times a day, and everyone shrugs and moves on. We've given up on norms of discourse and civility. To be clear, I'm not surprised that lies are being told; I'm surprised that there appears to be zero interest or any repercussions.
3) objective truth itself is under attack. It's becoming normalized that anyone can say whatever they feel at that moment and that they have "their truth" and I have "my truth". This is incredibly dangerous.
> A cardboard car does not function as a car does.
That's exactly the point. It is contrasting the appearance of the thing vs the structural & functional organization (logos) of the thing. Without the second, it is not the thing. One cannot establish an identity relationship just based on appearances. That is why you can't equivocate the appearance of a virtue with being virtuous.
> It sounds almost like you are saying something but you never explain exactly what’s wrong with performative virtue.
"Performative" virtue, a more accurate designation would be "demonstrative virtue", is an oxymoron. You cannot be virtuous without conforming to the structural & functional organization of the thing, i.e. without really being virtuous. Real virtue is a participatory endeavor. A display of virtuosity is like the cardboard car, it doesn't function as a virtue. Making people take down content for narcissistic reasons does not make the world a better place, because it is devoid of at least two core properties that is rationality and proportionality.
> But you have to define what is virtuous before you can claim that performative virtue is “fake”.
This topic is systematically discussed since Aristotle, and you would appreciate the absurdity of trying to give an exhaustive definition in this forum. But I've given you two properties of it that narcissistic censoring violates.
Vast majority of the consumers probably make pragmatic rather than idealistic consumption choices. Eg when you source a new iPhone, you source certain unethical labor practices. When you make use of the US dollar, you make use of some amount of atrocities that built its international purchasing power (eg any of the petrodollar wars). I bet those rarely bother even the most so-called “idealistic” consumers because a) it is a hard calculus to compute b) it is impossible to live when every “impure” thing is removed from use.
The difference with public content hosting is being able to twist arms to make them take down stuff and conform to an image of virtuousness which we narcissistically and psuedo-religiously identify with. It is not about the real damage the contents pose, it is our intolerance to being seen as a “person who can use such sites”. The threat is to our confirmation bias, in this case the confirmation of an idea that there is a clear right and wrong and we are definitely right.