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Notes -
I recently read The Elephant in the Brain and a review of it (https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/12/31/book-review-the-elephant-in-the-brain/)
One of the main ideas is that humans have competitive tendencies that helps them gain access to limited resources and mates. Humans need to signal that they are a good ally and mate in order to get some of the things that they desire. Instead of directly signaling (such as trying to impress people with our bank statement) people send indirect signals (such as wearing expensive clothes). Signaling indirectly gives us plausible deniability and even allows us to deceive ourselves (example: I wasn’t wearing expense clothes to show off my wealth, I just wore them because I like the way they look).
The book goes through Body Language, Laughter, Conversation, Consumption, Art, Charity, Education, Medicine, Religion and Politics to explain hidden motives. Examples:
Conversation isn’t just about exchanging information it is also about signaling intelligence and social skills.
Politics isn’t just about policy, it is also about alliances.
What are some hidden motives that you’ve noticed?
Some I’ve noticed is dancing is about signaling social confidence to potential mates. Brightly colored hair usually signals loyalty to left-leaning politics, the signal is costly because non-leftists may detect the signal and be biased against the signaler.
It’s interesting to think that the Muslim world might be onto something by banning the female appearance competition spiral. If the thesis of the book is correct, then it’s never enough for a religion to say “don’t entertain vanity” — instead the religion must actively punish vanity and reinforce less vain competition. The fundamentalist Muslim world just says “every woman wears this plain garb, period”, and in one fell swoop they have immediately restore six hours a week of labor to every woman, billions of dollars kept in middle class pockets, improved grades, etc. Because now the marriage-driven and reputation-driven competition over appearances is eliminated, and women now are forced to look for other ways to compete against each other. An entire % of brain activity is redirected to something that is, at least in theory, better for everyone’s happiness.
Another question: is virtue signaling bad, or is it only bad when the signal lacks substance? If moral action is induced by a person displaying his own morality, then why not support that? Our concern then should just be ensuring that the “moral competition” has the correct exemplars and rules, so that the substance lines up with the competition. So a person who is being “Christ-like” by practicing humility would be, counterintuitively, obtaining reinforcement by his community which all believe in such a moral exemplar — and this would be good, and not bad, because it’s making the most of human nature.
So a lot of moral implications hinge on the question of this book: is human behavior, pessimistically and ultimately, always decided by what gives the most ”primal” rewards?
I am not sure what your last part re: human nature means there, but I would suggest that at least in the fundamentalist-leaning or fully fundamentalist circles I was raised in and around, practicing humility would only be seen as desirable in certain contexts (e.g. in church with peers or in-group.) Once dealing with out-group (whoever that happens to be) these behaviors, or, types of signaling to use the language of OP, no longer seem to have the same standing.
It's always been odd to me that in many fundamentalist groups (I won't say all or even most, as I am speaking only from experience here) qualities like aggressiveness, retribution, even strong-arm or violence (see: War, but not just war, also in other contexts such as self-defense) are nearly always heralded as the moral choice when dealing with public issues (e.g. not issues within the church itself), and the counterpart to these qualities (passivity, turning-the-other-cheek, non-violence) are often dismissed as weak, or misunderstanding the gospel, etc.
Edit: I am also doubtful that Muslim women wearing covering in public at all times so neatly redistributes their schedule as suggested by OP, but I have no data or personal experience here.
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