The Virtue Signal

Another sign had appeared in the yard next door.  With the 2024 election only a year away, it was important to broadcast your political views to the other seven houses in the cul de sac.  Not to be outdone, another neighbor had also filled his lawn with a cardboard army of signs.  All I had to offer were grass and shrubs.  I was beginning to feel inadequate.

The Virtue Shop: Would You Like to Follow the Virtue Signal? #robertglover #comedy Click To Tweet

How was I going to keep up?  My neighbors were making a real difference in people’s lives.  They were announcing to the world that they supported Palestine, the Ukraine, black lives, black trans lives, immigrants and refugees, diversity, love, science, kindness, women’s rights, water, and of course, coexistence.

How had I fallen so far behind?  My lawn signage was clearly not up to par.  Could I catch up?

Unease without a Virtue Signal

This feeling of inadequacy continued for weeks.  The situation felt almost hopeless.  While I watched the signs on my neighbor’s lawns multiply like headstones in a graveyard, my own lawn was empty.  Was I imagining it, or were my neighbors beginning to stare?  I had not declared my undying devotion to their ideology.  I could not pronounce the progressive shibboleths.  Neighborhood whispers circulated about the family with a lawn consisting of grass only.  I was not at ease.

The Eleventh Commandment

As I drove around town one day, distracted by this arsenal of chambered badges, lawns loaded with aggressive exhibitions of secular piety, I wondered how I would ever match this high-minded state of being, where tolerance is the last remaining of Moses’ commandments, not physically present on the tablets, but there nonetheless.

If you read between the lines, you can easily see that tolerance goes somewhere between the third and fourth commandments.  Or is it the eighth and ninth?  Tacked on at the end after coveting?  Surely, His Divine Majesty had intended it for the eleventh commandment.  I can hear Him now…

Mount Sinai

It’s 1300 BC and Moses is on top of Mount Sinai surrounded by a cloud.

After our Lord chisels the ten commandments using supernatural lightning or some other ethereal tool only He can access, He growls at Moses: “I told you, Moses, there are eleven commandments!”

“I’m sorry, Lord, those were the biggest tablets I could find.”

“There’s only room for five each!”

“Just tell me the eleventh, Lord.  I promise not to forget.”

“All right, I won’t write the eleventh down.  Just tell everyone to be tolerant.”

“Yes, Lord, of course.”

“Don’t forget.”

“No, Lord, I won’t forget.  Thou shalt tolerate.  I’ll remember.”

“Good.  Now get on with it and bring the commandments down to my people.”

That’s how it must have happened.  God provided the eleventh commandment to tolerate every one and every sin.  Surely, the intention was for that to overrule the other ten: one commandment to rule them all.  The first ten were only inscribed on stone tablets.  The eleventh was inscribed on wind, so much more permanent.

An Unknown Street

As I paused in my meanderings at a stop light, my mind ruminated on this modern day revelation, and would have remained so distracted without the intrusion of a blinking red light off to my left.  Slowly, but persistently, the light pecked at my senses until I became aware of it and turned my head.

I had driven past this side street a hundred times, maybe more, but I had never driven down it – never had a reason to.  I hadn’t even realized there were businesses there.  Like Magellan, I decided to explore.  When the light changed, I turned to the left and directed my carrack to points unknown.

Drawn to the blinking red light, I barely noticed the blank faces of the buildings I passed.  Most of the street was a disappointment.  The only descript amidst the nondescript lay under a bright, red, blinking light above a white awning.  Over the light lay a sign announcing its contents:

T H E   V I R T U E   S H O P

I moored under the awning and disembarked.  I had found it: the virtue signal!  I had a strong feeling I would find what I was looking for inside the Virtue Shop.

The Virtue Signal Shop

Words cannot express the joy I felt on entering the shop.  To my left, the walls were stacked with the green, black, and red of the Palestinian flag in every possible size.  Another section was devoted to the blue and yellow colors of the Ukraine, still in vogue.  To think there existed some urban supporter somewhere without one amazed me, but there they were.

Hanging on the walls to my right, every conceivable variation of rainbows, unicorns, and pride was displayed.  Ahead of me, signs at the ends of aisles pointed to “Black Lives Matter,” “Antifa,” “I Believe in Science,” “Love is Love” (what else could it be?), and other modern tropes and tautologies stenciled on placards and signs down the aisles.

Standing next to the cash register on my left, a gray-haired, bearded man in a tie-dyed tee shirt smiled at me.  Framing him on the wall behind him, a massive black hammer and sickle on a red background embraced him like a halo.  It was obvious that this man was priest, prophet, and saint of the new religion.  Should I bow down, kneel, fall prostrate in worship?

“Good afternoon, sir,” said the sage.  “How can I help you?”

“You cannot believe how long I have searched for your store.”

“We just opened,” he said, “but business is booming.  Every public display of compassion, tortured guilt, repressed rage, and mandatory conformity you could possibly want is here for purchase.”

“I’ll bet.  It looks like you have every sign a dutiful virtue-signaler’s supposed to have.”

“The enlightened gentleman went on: “It’s important the oppressors indicate their willingness to kowtow to all of the victims of their ancestral hegemony.”

“Outstanding, I’m glad to hear that.”  I looked up and down the aisles, on the walls, in the bins, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for.  I decided to ask.  “One question,” I said.  “Where do you keep your Trump 2024 signs?”

The End of Virtue

Next thing I knew I was face down in the gutter.  How I got there I couldn’t say.  It had happened so quickly it was outside the realm of human comprehension.  I raised my head.  From behind me, I heard Mr. Tie-Dye growl, “And don’t come back!”

My lawn would remain empty, completely lacking in virtue.  Does anyone have any virtue to spare?