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The Virtue Signal

The Virtue Signal: What is Virtue?

Co-hosts Bill Whittle and Alfonzo Rachel kick off the first episode in the series by trying to pin down this elusive but essential ingredient of a free society.

The Virtue Signal: What is Virtue?

Co-hosts Bill Whittle and Alfonzo Rachel kick off the first episode in the series by trying to pin down this elusive but essential ingredient of a free society.

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65 replies on “The Virtue Signal: What is Virtue?”

Welcome Zo! Missed you from the PJTV days & it’s good to see you here.
As usual, the “Right to a healthy life” trope also conveniently disregards the individual’s own responsibility in the matter. Humpty Dumpty can be as reckless as he likes; no cost will be too high to put him back together & even better than before.

After watching again, I notice that the question in the title never gets answered. Virtue as a topic is batted around for a couple of minutes and then the subject changes and never returns to it.

A fun conversation, to be sure, but if your intent is what you say it is at the beginning – exploring the philosophy and morality of your positions – you have to stay on topic and drink deeper than the thin layer of foam floating above the latte, no matter how pretty it is.

So very true. Entitlement is a dangerous phenomenon. When a person believes that his opinion is infallible, when he thinks he is owed acceptance and agreement, when he believes that he is supposed to be adored or lauded, then comes the fall.

Excited about the return of Alonzo. Brings back memories of PJTV. Still addicted to the crew from back then. Charter member of Whittle’s stuff and huge fan-boy. Waited 45 minutes to shake his hand in Marietta, Georgia back when, dragging my teenager along.
Now if we could just get the old Whittle and Andrew Klavan discussions for a dose or two a month.

YES!!! I loved the old Whittle Klavan discussions! It’d be great to get those two back together!

Good for you Bill, for bringing on Alfonzo Rachel! Welcome Back Zo! Your PJ episodes were not to be missed. I learned so much from you and your perspective. This is going to get good. Let Zo speak more, loved when Bill did a followup and had Zo elaborate on a subject. Do more of this.

Yo Zo …. long time no see, but great to see and hear your wisdom and takes once again. Somewhere down the road, would love to hear a few licks on some of your background scenery!

I just want his background location grafted onto my house! I can use the drums, and I would have much fun learning to use those axes!
#want!

They didn’t have a show together but Zo had a show at PJ when the boys had Trifecta. The closest was Bill having Zo on as a guest for After Hours and some other joint items over the years. But I think this is the first show they have had together.

Zo also filled in from time to time when one of the hosts of Trifecta was out.

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Thanks! You must have been visiting Bill’s site for a very long time! Good health to you and what are going to do about the state of our Great Country

The hard part is trying to show that the idea of positive rights always results in poor outcomes and tragedy. When you express a distaste for such things as a right to health care (not access, but to the care itself) you come off as the bad guy. Sadly the average persons feelings don’t care about facts.

My usual response to the claim that everyone has a right to health care is that the Thirteenth amendment disagrees with them.

I normally add “sure, and I want right to free beer and pussy too, will you pay for that?” Then the smarter guys pull back a little. The others start to claim something about “that’s different” but soon drawn in the explanation how.
The problem here is that healthcare HAS some parts that can treated as commons and can not work on the individual/voluntary basis. And it’s all too easy to mud the whole picture.

Amen to the prior post. A Very huge welcome back or WELCOME HOME to Zo. I have really missed the connection with him and I hope this family reunion just keeps expanding. Hats off to Bill and everyone involved.

I knew that I missed Zo, but his passion and honesty are so contagious that I didn’t know how much I missed him. Welcome back. These will be great discussions!

As far as I can tell, there are two usages to the term “virtue”. The first is external, e.g., virtual signaling in order to achieve status. The second is internal, i.e., being a “virtuous” person.
Internal “virtue” seems to consist of three separate yet united choices that define the inner meaning of a person. The first is truth, an epistemological shift from naive realism (reality is out there to be seen), empiricism (only observable data is real), or conceptualism (ideas themselves are real) to a critical realism that affirms truth as a function of experiencing, understanding, and judging. The act of judging is often the missing component.
The second is moral, in the sense that each individual is faced with a choice: to pursue personal satisfactions vs. acting on the bases of true value such as justice. As we have seen over the last few months, personal satisfactions such as having a job or keeping one’s social status takes precedent in what Prager says is the ‘Good’ American (remember the ‘Good’ German?).
The third has to do with the source of the first two. Here there are only two real options: God as creator of the universe, and man. If not God, then morality is relative (the values of a pirate are quite different from a small businessman). Consider the rise of Gaia or Sophia (human wisdom), or the Utopian socialist model as earthy replacements for God.
Internal “virtue” exists when all three components support each other.

The classic four cardinal virtues are prudence (wisdom), justice, temperance (moderation), and fortitude (courage). And add to them the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. One could argue that hubris is unwise, unjust, and intemperate.

My problem with these classical theological categories is that they cannot be measured or tested in any practical way. For example, the value system of a radical Islamist could just as well include prudence, justice, moderation, and courage–yet these virtues are expressed within a very narrow horizon that excludes whole areas of experience (no or little interest in scientific matters), understanding (restricted to what is essentially an 3th century Arabic mentality), judgment (an exterior locus of control), and deciding (a misapprehension of what is or is not important, i.e., the Koran as the ultimate truth for all time).

What I find more useful are criteria that avoid the use of such terms in favor of inbuilt cognitive operations of the human mind with their associated precepts. Are people open to experience or not? Are they intelligent in coming to understand what it is they experience? (If their range of experience is limited, such as the political environment of Nancy Pelosi, than the range of their understanding is limited and their understanding distorted.) Are they reasonable in judging what is or is not true? Or is their judgment consciously or unconsciously biased? Finally, are they making sound judgments of what is or is not of ultimate value? The American experience is of no value to those who would tear it down; but are they making a sound decision? That you could challenge in a way that avoids a relative morality.

For me it is easier to evaluate both myself and others according to four transcendental precepts: be open to experience, be intelligent in understanding, be reasonable in judging, and be responsible in deciding. And there is probably a fifth: be loving.

There’s a book by Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, that you might enjoy. It’s based on Aquinas who is based on Aristotle, among others.

The Cardinal Virtues come from the ancient Greeks, and I think that prudence comprehends your first two precepts and justice comprehends your second two precepts. Courage is need to effectuate any virtue. Temperance keeps you on an even keel. However, I applaud any effort to grapple with personal virtue, so I certainly respect your designations.

So I have a right to a healthy life.
I’ll say what I said when Biden’s campaign announced Biden would cure cancer during his term.
“Fine. Cure mine, then we’ll talk.”

I consistently try to show how I accept the possibility that I could be wrong about my beliefs. For example, I don’t believe that a massive single-payer health care system will deliver what it is stated to deliver. Therefore, I will totally support any effort by the legions of those who do hold that belief to establish their own single-payer system. Obama was never prevented in the first place to establish his own company, call it “Obamacare” or whatever, establish rules of coverage, set premiums, contract with providers, and allow anyone who wants to enroll to sign up. There is nothing about the country in my view that would prevent that.

YAY! So good to see Zo again. I really enjoyed the discussion about pride, a sin I struggle with. I was sorry to see the program end. Now if you could only get Andrew Klavan as a guest, what a Dream Team that would be.

You spoke of people not being able to handle truth. This is because people are conditioned to believe that their thoughts and beliefs are truth and they live their lives accordingly. When exposed to an actual truth that contradicts their belief they reject that actual truth violently because to accept the actual truth is to accept that their belief is wrong which also means to accept that their life has been and is wrong. This they can not handle therefore the rejection.

So glad to see Zo here with us. He is how I found Bill. Looking forward to seeing more from you two. Another good idea for a show would be Zo and Scott having a religious discussion. Maybe once or twice a month.

Wow you guys! This was great! I Love Bill, Scott and Steve, it is great to see Zo again,
The subject of pride is an interesting one. I can say “not guilty” to most of the 7 deadly sins, but not this one. Something (else) for me to work on (sigh). Thanks again for a good discussion

It’s worth the price of admission just to see and listen to what Alfonzo has to say. He is one of the really bright ones at PJ-tv. It’s up to us and nobody else. In the not to distance past, we would go to war over what is being done to us. The push is on, the real question is where is the breaking point and when does it start getting real ugly? I don’t know. What I do know is places like this are needed more than ever. I subscribed to all sorts of alternate platforms that I would have never done otherwise. I am even looking a ditching my phone (that is easier said than done) I would like to move away from Verizon, they are just as bad as Facebook and Google. In the meantime, I am really enjoying being here, should have done so years ago. As for Virtue well, we can all agree that it really starts with knowing what is right from wrong. Not politics, all politics is is how to get from point a to b, with the how you do that! For example, Murder is wrong we know this to be true since human beings had some of the first laws written included Murder. Abusing others for entertainment purposes. It’s stuff you just know without being told it is.

First off, Holy S***balls, welcome back, Zo! Great episode, thanks for hearing us Bill, and please keep ’em coming!
On a side note Zo, if you’re reading this I probably should have commented on one of your YouTube vids, but in general they’re too long. If you can cut them down to bite sized chunks like this you’ll probably get more views. Or at least enough to get you shadow banned by YouTube and back to your current numbers…

Great discussion. It was the kind of discussion where I wanted to be involved in the exchange. I highly recommend ‘What We Can’t Not Know’ by Budziszewski. Budziszewski lays out those immutable truths. Looking forward to future programs with Mr. Zo.

It’s so good to see Zo again!

The whole notion of “pride” – as it is generally used today (used as a sort of throw-away line, I think) is one that I have a hard time using when talking about MY feelings. I can be – and am – proud of my children when they accomplish something, but I rarely say “I’m proud of what I accomplished”. I can be happy about it, satisfied with it, pleased, etc…, but pride is not a word I tend to use when I’m talking about myself.

I hear people say they are proud to be an American. I am happy, grateful, eminently pleased that I am American, but I rarely use the word “proud”. I should think more about why that is. I am not saying anything negative about those who say they are proud of a particular thing, but I should give some thought as to how I process that word and that emotion.

The “pride” that is described here as bad is better represented by the term “hubris.”

There’s nothing wrong with being proud of yourself, your accomplishments, etc. That kind of pride is naturally tempered by a rational approach to life, what Bill and Zo called “humility.” The good pride is merely a recognition that what you’re proud of is good. You give yourself the same credit that you give everyone else for doing good, not because it’s you but because it’s good. It’s when you discard the humility that you fall into hubris and give yourself more credit than you give others. You begin to feel superior. That’s when the problems come.

“Pride” is a positive thing when, as you said, when there is humility employed. When I said the term is used far too casually, I meant that in a general sense, how we hear it most often on tv, in the media, etc…. My mind doesn’t connect pride with race, sexual preference, or other such things. I can’t process the concept of being “proud” of being straight, white, Catholic, etc….

I certainly am not trying to disparage those who feel pride in being American; it’s just that, in my case, I have just never ascribed that term to the happiness, relief, and gratefulness I have in being American.

Hubris and narcissism are the pitfalls that can be the result of pride not tempered by humility. You and I can cite numerous examples.

The architect Frank Lloyd Wright, in regard to his artistry and architecture, said he preferred to (exhibit and be accused of) honest arrogance rather than hypocritical humility. Not exactly counter to what you said, but a different flavoring of it perhaps?

Since we all have a mix of strengths and limits, we can and should be able to be proud of our strengths while not trying to fool anyone in regard to our limits. In those situations where we can maximize our strengths, we should be able to experience a justifiable pride, as long as that strength is not really at the expense of someone else (except perhaps a somewhat less skilled competitor in a fair and open competition).

Agreed. Just one thing, in a competition, one side wins and the other side loses. But winning doesn’t come at the expense of the loser because both sides profit from the learning that comes from the experience. And the loser can be (the good kind of) proud if he gave his best, all-out effort.

Interesting that you chose FLW as an example. I have toured several FLW houses, and while I view him as talented, I think he is a perfect example of someone whose pride and arrogance led him to choices in his personal life that adversely affected his career. If he’d had a healthy self-respect in terms of his talent perhaps he wouldn’t have derailed himself in self-indulgence of what his “greatness” deserved.

Just going to say that this kind of conversation is exactly what I suspect Bill’s trying to encourage with this series. Good work, all! 😀

I think one way one could be proud to be an American is if one does the things that makes one an American.

That tends to be the dividing line between pride and hubris. You can be proud of what you’ve done, what you accomplished, built, learned, taught (if you were a major component of a student’s or child’s success you can take some pride in that that while still appreciating what the other person has done, the same as being proud of being part of a team that accomplished something.. like being an American).

Hubris can come in when you either take too much pride in a small thing or try to elevate yourself based on something you have not done. The gay/black/SJW types of pride are not based in something they’ve done, but just how they were born and being proud of that isn’t much at all. A Jew that survived a concentration camp, a black boy that rose from the projects to become a surgeon or a record setting baseball player (and endured racism but rose above it) or some similar struggle can give a person pride in what they have done despite the hardships imposed on them from racist or homophobic people, but the pride is in succeeding, not the reason for those hardships. Someone who has not succeeded has no reason to be proud even with the same hardships.

This I think is where some of the religious cautions against pride come in. Especially in Christianity, there is a belief that it is not you that has done a thing but God working through you. This is very much a religious take but the line might get blurred if you do not know where someone’s view of pride comes from or how they’ve defined “virtue.” As Zo pointed out, these differences are part of the problem with differing groups fighting.

Leftists take personal responsibility out of the equation. They want everything to be a right, a given, a gift so to speak, usually conferred by the government taking advantage of the good behavior, smart choices and wise decisions of responsible people (mature adults) to fund the solutions to their (immature children) bad ones. Responsible people often suffer the old adage “no good deed goes unpunished”.

Helping people is no simple task and requires more than a good heart – doing it right gives those who are helped much more than a short-term remedy; doing it wrong can cause more harm to the person in need than good. Haiti and much of Africa comes to mind.

I never missed an episode of The Zoloft … Until YouTube banned them that is.

I do not recall one single instance of Zo saying a single thing that he should get banned for.

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