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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!
I disagree. Because at the end of the day, your integrity is one of the few things you can actually control. You are proposing that you would give that up, for what? Some stupid grad school? Seriously, who the fuck cares? You aren't going to be actually worse off because of it, you aren't going to have opportunities denied because of it, it just plain and simple doesn't matter in the end.
Huh? So an "integrity" is real, but the whole of your future career - which isn't just something that gets you money, but is most of your concrete impact on the lives of others - "who the fuck cares"? If you (competent) don't get into med school but cheater (incompetent) does, isn't that bad? That's just plainly false. Even for grad school specifically, some opportunities that are both useful to you and to society are gated by it. Lying might be bad not because "you can control it" (??), but because it harms the people you lie to, and the success of projects you and they are invested in (such as 'doctors being competent' or 'efficient administration of justice'). This is a common idea, but it's really not coherent.
It's perfectly coherent. Don't confuse "I disagree with it" for "it's not coherent". If you don't value moral actions for their own sake, or don't value them higher than material things, that's fine. But I do, and that is the whole crux of the thing. There's nothing incoherent about having a position that follows from fundamental values you disagree with.
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