I would love for society to return to using "virtue-signaling" and "vice-signaling" in their original meaning, instead of this contemporary linguistic hell where the former is a derogatory synonym for political correctness.
That's not going to happen. Now, I take them as a different sort of signal. Someone who uses those terms are more likely than not coming from a certain worldview, and so it tips me off about the context in which to take their comments.
since in contemporary western society we don't have commonly agreed-upon ideas of "good", "good" becomes an individualized, emotionally-driven thing about agreeability. in the absence of a standard, "the virtues" are replaced with the much more malleable concept of singular "virtue". so today "virtuous" just means "good" and "good" means "agreeable to my worldview", and since we've collectively conflated worldview with politics, having acceptable politics is, quite literally, signaling virtue.
point is that while it's disappointing for the west to lack a clear moral sensibility, the linguistics are perfectly coherent
3000 years from now conservatives will be reading from their "Old Testament" about the evils of political correctness even if they are hazy about the details as if Stanford was on the East Coast or the West Coast.
There was a blog post that got flagged this morning where somebody was complaining about those "In those house we believe signs..." which I haven't seen around for a year or so.
