Virtue signaling is amplified by social media algorithms. With a single click, they enable us to signal our latest virtue via pictures or profile images, encouraging us to place “virtuous” symbols like rainbows, COVID vaccinated stickers, or a Ukrainian flag on our social media profiles.
The sad truth is that the digital algorithms have created a caged, Pavlovian environment. We are pressured to follow the “right” behaviors, trends, and responses, and as a reward we receive likes, thumbs -up, and tiny bursts of endorphins in our brains.
These “virtue” conformities have made their way to Roatan. Here are a few virtue signals that islanders have embraced lock, stock, and barrel.
Plastic Bags will Not Save Us
When the previous Roatan Municipal administration banned plastic bags and transparent plastic containers, I was not happy. Not because I dislike nature, am particularly lazy, or even poor. This municipal exercise in virtue signaling seemed pointless beyond allowing Roatan’s local government to signal that they too have joined this global psychosis.
The cost of not being provided free plastic bags by grocers is passed on to the consumer. I’ve done the calculations and every year it costs me $90 to keep up with this “no plastic bags” virtue signaling. I lose about $20 by having to buy bags at 10 Lps. a piece. When there are no bags available, I have to pay someone to pack my food items into a cardboard box and carry it to my car. Sometimes that carton breaks apart, spilling and ruining its content. The estimated cost of these lost items? $30 a year.
It costs me $90 to keep up with this “no plastic bags” virtue signaling.
We don’t only lose money in the name of carrying out this virtue signal, we lose time. I spend extra time waiting for the supermarket store packer to locate a box and tie it down with black plastic string. The entire process can extend each visit to the supermarket by an extra 1-2 minutes. These minutes add up. I go to Eldon’s every other day on average, which is about 182 times a year. Multiply that by, say, 1.5 minutes, and you have 273 minutes or 4.5 hours a year.
For having groceries packed, I have to pay a grocery clerk to carry the boxes to the car, which that was not always the case. When I got a few bags, I would carry them myself.
I miss the convenience of the always abundant, available, and strong plastic bags for my groceries. Those of us who wanted to bring their own bags were welcome to do so. I feel almost melancholic about them. They had several different sizes and featured white and orange stripes.
The “So Very Much Caring” Banks
Another virtue signaling exercise has been performed for nearly three years by Honduran Banks. Since mid- 2020, when the COVID lockdowns began, these banks begun pushing the illusion that wearing masks is essential for conducting business and that they care about public health. Banks forced everybody to participate in this psychotic masquerade and outlasted even government institutions in its enforcement.
Honduran banks have been enforcing a “no hats” rule in banks for two decades. The logic behind “no hats” in Honduran banks is somewhat sound, as hats can obscure the face and could aid in staying stealthy during a robbery. However, if you follow simple logic, requiring wearing a face mask negates the need to remove hats. Apparently, for the banks — supposedly logical economic institutions — logic has very quickly reached its limit.
From Church of Hope to Church of Fear
The virtue signaling in Catholic churches in Honduras and on the island has also reached a crescendo. During the COVID operation, the Honduran Catholic Church authorities somehow convinced their faithful that taking Eucharist in their hands and then placing it in their mouths is somehow safer, and that we are less likely to fall ill and die from the Eucharist this way.
This “virtuous” act is revolutionary. Allow me to explain. One of basic Catholic tenants of faith is the dogma of Transubstantiation. Since the Council of Trent in 1551, according to Catholic Church teachings, “the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ” is central to the faith.
This transubstantiation takes place through Eucharistic prayer and the actions of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the treating of the consecrated host is of utmost importance for a Catholic. The consecrated host is venerated and guarded and all costs. For millennia, it could only be touched by the consecrated, purified hands of a priest and was delivered only onto the tongue.
In 2020, when Church authorities in Honduras and Roatan virtue signaled that they are concerned about those accepting the consecrated Body of Christ, local churches began enforcing that the Body of Christ be taken onto often unwashed, unsanitary hands before placing the host into one’s month. That Honduran bishops introduced this idea — that the Body of Christ could kill you — is peak satanic manipulation of the frightened masses.
The Catholic Church, which for 2,000 years reminded us about the transcendental value of faith and the importance of the afterlife, has suddenly and incredibly convinced us that, in reality, this physical life is most important. Just like that, the Church has gone from being a shepherd of souls to administrators of fear in a religion of scientism.
We are constantly pressured by media, authorities, and friends to despise classical virtues and to glorify and celebrate vices. We are taught to despise moderation, temperance, chastity, beauty, and life. We are pressured to glorify pride, gluttony, sodomy, ugliness and death. We may live in transvaluated times, but I, for one, refuse to adopt those values as my own.
We are taught to despise moderation, temperance, chastity, beauty, and life.
