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Notes -
I bet you've heard the phrase "living well is the best revenge." I think it's also the best argument. There are so many ideas, or larger schemas, that are alluring in abstract. See: every teenager's politics. But far fewer paradigms are actually effective in practice. (Granted, which ones work does vary somewhat based on the local circumstances / environment.)
Living out one's ideals is a costly signal of sincerity, and achieving success and happiness by doing so is the least refutable argument. This is a big reason why religion is so persistent despite sounding batshit crazy from the outside — and I say this as a religious person. The philosophy makes sense once you fit yourself inside of it, but the incentive to attempt that in the first place, despite the context of a secular overculture, is that religious people are more likely to thrive.
Anyway, my question is, why don't more culture warriors pursue this path, of exemplifying why their chosen philosophy is good? Am I wrong that it's the most convincing way to advocate for one's ideals? Or maybe everyone is indeed trying to do this, and most just don't seem very effective from my particular vantage point / vis-a-vis my conception of the good life? Perhaps it's a selection effect where people who deeply care about what everyone else is doing are less likely to be happy, point blank, so anyone discernible as a culture warrior is already precluded from "living well is the best argument" unless they learn to give less of a shit in general.
Edit: Apologies for not responding individually, this ended up getting more responses than I expected. But I appreciate you all and am pondering your points!
In my view you've already touched upon the salient points. So I'll probably just rehash it, but here are my thoughts anyways.
I think this is made somewhat more complicated in practice by
the inherent difficulty of living well regardless of philosophy, by
some philosophies being not self-sufficient but requiring the correct the correct external conditions to live a good life by their own metrics, and finally by
a good life not being an objective standard.
Now,
In our age of large populations with low mortality and the illusion of egalitarianism and a great deal of wishful thinking, many are led to believe that a good life should be theirs. But a large subset of the many are not suited for a good life, or unable to life well except under very favorable circumstances that are unlikely to come about for them. By biological or psychological or social or economic problems, they will be unhappy or unsuccessful or otherwise unfit to lead by example. Philosophy needn't even come into it.
Should be obvious. If a philosophy demands that in the extreme the eschaton be immanentized or more moderately that society's egregious problem X should be resolved prior to the good life, and given that this is presented credibly enough and signal-boosted enough, then that philosophy can appear valid and attractive even though its adherents are not living well, or are living well by covertly utilizing some other philosophy.
Is directly related to the previous point and is illustrated by @Butlerian. One may see a life as good and others will still manage to take issue with it. This is prevalent enough to be a substantial obstacle to setting philosophical examples by good living.
None of this is new or original of course.
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