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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

'Claim-staking'

The useful term 'virtue-signaling' has of late become ubiquitous -- "[James Bartholomew] coined the phrase in an article here in The Spectator (18 April) in which [he] described the way in which many people say or write things to indicate that they are virtuous. Sometimes it is quite subtle. By saying that they hate the Daily Mail or Ukip, they are really telling you that they are admirably non-racist, left-wing or open-minded. One of the crucial aspects of virtue signalling is that it does not require actually doing anything virtuous. It does not involve delivering lunches to elderly neighbours or staying together with a spouse for the sake of the children. It takes no effort or sacrifice at all."

Recently, I read someone asking whether there is a similar pithy term by which to denote the never-ending efforts of leftist cry-bullies to establish for themselves a place of social-and-moral dominance on the leftist hierarchy-of-victimhood totem-pole.

May I suggest 'claim-staking', or, in full, 'victimhood/victimocracy claim-staking'?

1 comments:

Nate Winchester said...

Victim-acting?

Claim-staking is my favorite of the ones you listed. More technical would probably be, "faking social capital"