Virtue Signaling and Other Heresies: Selected Writings from Whatever, 2013-2018

Whatever #4

by John Scalzi, Nate Taylor (Artist)

“‘Virtue signaling’ is a phrase the dim and bigoted use when they want to discount other people expressing the idea that it would be nice if we could all be essentially and fundamentally decent to each other.” -- John Scalzi

For twenty years now—yes, twenty—John Scalzi has been writing on his blog Whatever, writing about, well, whatever: Politics, writing, cats, the internet and the great social and cultural events of our times. In that time he’s gone from being just another crank online to being a bestselling, award-winning crank, i.e., the very best kind of crank there is.

With Virtue Signaling and Other Heresies, Scalzi looks back on the years 2013 through 2018. In this volume, Scalzi delves through the final term of Obama and the ushering in of the Trump years, surveys the increasingly-hostile online landscape, goes to the movies, and talks on subject ranging from #MeToo to the teachers who shaped him growing up. Through it all, Scalzi’s distinct voice—funny, sarcastic, passionate, sometimes angry, and honed by two decades of daily writing served up to hundreds of thousands of readers monthly—is on full display.

Virtue Signaling: A chronicle of a turbulent, momentous moment in time, from one of the most acclaimed science fiction authors of his time.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Writing, Anthologies, Humor

432 pages, Hardcover

Published December 31, 2018

About the author

John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.

(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Scalzi's fiction and his social media progressive feminist presence. These essays are a fast read. They'll make you wish Scalzi was a neighbor and a friend, and wish you could express your (mostly similar) views in such a clear, simple, and compelling fashion.

[DoodleBug · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yawn

Clearly Scalzi does not understand the definition of virtue signaling, an activity he participates in quite frequently.

Nor can he make an argument without attacking his opponents. It's a shame that he commits that logical fallacy so often.

I would suggest that he grow up and develop true compassion, which requires no "virtue signaling," but I doubt he would listen, what with his absolute (and quite false) certitude and belief in his own moral superiority.

[EuroHackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up. My favorite part of the book itself is the author photo of Scalzi with baby!Smudge on his shoulder ♥ I don't think there's been enough time/distance from when these columns were originally written to truly enjoy them and/or have perspective; we are still living in the hell that was created 8 years ago. (There was a lot of skipping over political essays, because the sting has not yet lessened.) So, this collection was not nearly as enjoyable for me as the first one. Still, there are some gems here, mostly when Scalzi focuses on the more timeless sorts of topics. My favorites included:

[+] Adulthood and What Being a Friend Means Now (Oct 4, 2015)
[+] A Book Sale at the Cost of Your Conscience (Mar 9, 2015)
[+] 18 (Dec 23, 2016)
[+] Ghalaghghee, 2003-2015 (Jan 25, 2015)
[+] Guilty Pleasures (Apr 9, 2013)
[+] Here's a Quarter (Sep 15, 2015)
[+] How I Knew I'd Made It (Jan 31, 2014)
[+] Jacqueline Kahn (Jun 8, 2015)
[+] Meet Keith Johnson (Jan 29, 2018)
[+] A Personal History of Libraries (Feb 23, 2013)
[+] Suddenly, Nostalgia (Aug 16, 2014)
[+] There Shall Your Heart Be Also (Aug 2, 2013)
[+] 20 Years (Jun 17, 2015)
[+] 2017, Word Counts and Writing Process (Oct 2, 2017)
[+] Why I Don't Drink or Use Drugs (Mar 24, 2016)

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the other two Whatever collections so much, when I saw this was out, I just bought it. Checking blogs on the regular isn’t a habit yet for me, and so it makes me happy when they’re collected in books. I figure that makes me sound like a Luddite, but hey, I bought it for my kindle. So there. Scalzi writes so often about contemporary issues, and I like to read what he thinks, so I still have good intentions of working Whatever into my daily routine, but this collection was recent enough that nothing felt too over. Except for the last presidential election. Sigh. I wish he’d been right in his predictions there.
I’ve read a little of Scalzi’s fiction, and I really like it. The military sci-fi books are not so much my bag, but I still love the way he writes. In his fiction, you can tell he’s a smart, funny guy. In his blog, he reveals more—about his childhood, his writing process, his family, and his thoughts on the issues of the day. It’s still a public version of himself, and he says as much in some of his entries, but it makes me like and appreciate him on a different level. He’s a good egg. He writes reasonably and intelligently regardless of topic, and I appreciate the open-mindedness and fairness at the heart of what he writes. I put one of my favorite quotes from the book in a status update, but I’ll repeat it here.

Life is one long process of discovery about just how little you know about pretty much everything, and that includes people and the insides of their heads.

This is the type of thing that rings so true to me, I highlight it, along with things like his repeated assertion that “the failure mode of clever is ‘ass-hole,’” which doesn’t have quite the same ring as the first quote, but is no less true. He does have a knack for the memorable phrase.
His posts about his wife and daughter are incredibly sweet. Although my life experience is very different from his, I think the fact that we’re about the same age and have been married for the same number of years makes me relate more to him.
Recommended whether or not you’ve read his fiction.

[Cale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never been so tempted to highlight passages in a library book before. I just wish it came with a 'sarcasm' sticker on the cover, because some of the people who saw me holding a book with this title gave me some (deservedly) strange looks.
This was technically a re-read for me - I've been reading John Scalzi's Whatever blog for probably a decade, so I saw all of these entries when he posted them. I thought I might just skim through, but I ended up sitting down and reading every page. Scalzi in his conversational mode is an enjoyable read, and he makes a lot of points I agree with (any number of which I wouldn't be completely shocked to find out I came to agree with by reading these posts the first time). He's got a lot of insight, and a good sense of himself, both his positive and negative points. He is willing to admit that his position as a wealth straight white male insulates him from a lot of the negatives in the US, but doesn't mean he can't speak out against them anyway, which is a useful inspiration to provide to others in the same boat. And because this covers 2013-2018, there's a lot about the GOP and Trump, and it's not... flattering. But his disgust with them is presented in a well-reasoned way; I'd be curious to see how conservative readers respond. There's also a lot about culture, writing, happiness, art, a little bit of Whatever was on his mind. Scalzi's writing makes all of it interesting to read, even when you disagree, and he's got a number of quotes in here that are worth parsing out and keeping in mind. Definitely recommended.

[Dubi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before he became your favorite science fiction author (and mine), John Scalzi wrote in several other modes. For twenty years, he blogged regularly at his site, Whatever (that puts him among the first bloggers, possibly even predating the term blog). Virtue Signaling is his latest collection of blog posts culled from Whatever, spanning the years 2013 to 2018.

As such, it is a mixed bag thematically, although political commentary and related social issues are clearly at the fore, considering the big change in political climate that took place in 2016. In addition, Scalzi (once a film critic) discusses movies (all science fiction I believe), plus music, online etiquette, his family, and such.

So why, you might immediately ask, should I buy a collection of blog posts that are available for free online at said blog? The immediate answer, in a technical realm, is that you won't have to sift through many posts that don't qualify for collection -- photos, status updates, entries by guest writers, etc. (I checked a couple of months at random, and only two or three of twenty-plus monthly posts made it into the collection).

And there is also the notion that having it all at your fingertips, whether in print or as an E-book, depending on what you prefer, gives it a familiar feel that encourages reading posts in their entirety and reading the collection in its entirety -- online posts, as we all know whether we admit it or not, are too easy to skim, overlook, or just plain give up on after a while.

But the biggest thing is seeing it all side by side in the context Scalzi intends. There is a continuum of both style and substance, regardless of subject matter (and regardless of the seemingly random but actually quite deliberate organization of posts in mostly alphabetical order), that comes across in reading these essays as a collection. Scalzi has an approach to critical thinking that is consistent and indelible, and to my mind, wholly appealing. In short, he's one heckuva writer, even when he's creating something other than the best contemporary (often comic) science fiction available anywhere.

As a corollary to that, if you are indeed a fan of his science fiction, you may have noticed that while he can expertly tell a straight-ahead story that stands on its own, he always has, if you want to dig for it, a clear subtext. As in the best science fiction of any era, that subtext says more about contemporary conditions than it does about a speculative future. Scalzi is a master at such subtext. Reading Virtue Signaling elevates the themes from sub to center stage.

That suggests another question. What if you're not a fan of Scalzi's science fiction? Not a trivial question, as there is a schism in the science fiction community in which Scalzi is a central figure. I won't get into the whole thing here (look it up if you must), but Scalzi represents one side of the story, at times as a leader, at times as a target. Since much of his political and social commentary on Whatever and therefore in this book is unmistakably emblematic of his side, those coming from the opposite perspective will likely fail to appreciate it.

To which I have this to add, to quote a passage from Virtue Signaling: "you have to learn the skills that allow you to robustly defend your point of view and to abandon that point of view when it is not tenable, and come to a new understanding through the process." I would recommend that all readers apply this process to Scalzi's ideas, regardless of a reader's ideological point of origin. Not necessarily to have minds changed, but to at least put ideas to the test and see if they withstand challenge.

Sadly, this is not likely to happen with Scalzi's detractors, and his fans will no doubt function as the proverbial choir. But as a member of that choir, I appreciate Scalzi's intellectual honesty in offering up his opinions, challenging himself to demonstrate that they are indeed tenable, always with the caveat that they are his opinions and not anything he would impose on anyone else.

[C. A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Disclaimer: I received an advance NetGalley copy for an honest review.]

Whenever a major event happens in the news, particularly when it has to do with politics, the world of publishing, science fiction, or puffed-up whiny manboys who are alarmed that women are standing up straight and talking right out in public, I head to science fiction writer John Scalzi's 20-year-old, "Whatever," to see if he's written about it.

More often than not, he has. More often than not, his posts are smart, funny, sarcastic, and insightful.

"Virtue Signalling and Other Heresies" is the latest collection of blog posts to Whatever, covering the last five years with special attention to the mess in the White House since 2016. My beliefs on politics -- and feminism, and treating people with respect, and general ethical behavior -- line up with this so reading the posts again was cathartic and depressing and fun. Scalzi is not one to suffer fools or hide his opinions and he lets fly again here, although since the election some of them have been more in sorrow than in anger.

Partly because of that he chose to break the essays up so there wouldn't be one "hard slog" during the Trump years, running them mostly in alphabetical order instead. I understand this, but where on the site itself you expect to get a mishmash of subjects from day to day I thought it made the book as a whole more disjointed as the posts lurch back and forth.

But you'll get his thoughts on the election, and Trump, and Republicans and Democrats. Also his family, writing, the business of writing, why "Avengers: Infinity War" left him flat even though he thought it was amazingly done, why you shouldn't let your child name your cat, why using "they" as a singular pronoun is just fine, Muhammed Ali, and whatever else occurs to him.

"Virtue Signalling" is another wonderful dive back into John Scalzi's mind and that's always a fun place to visit.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This is another volume of selected essays originally published on Scalzi's blog Whatever. Specifically, these are essays from the last 5 years in which he discusses politics and various socially and culturally significant events, plus a few other essays reflecting on family and friends. I happen to largely agree with Scalzi on political and social issues, so I found this book highly enjoyable and entertaining. If you don't like the political and social views he regularly expresses on his blog and on Twitter, then you won't enjoy this, a book in which he does nothing but express those views.

I found this volume to be generally cathartic and highly relevant. In the midst of so much chaos and vitriol in the news and on social media, it's nice to read a bunch of sane essays.

I did dislike the organization of this book. The essays are presented in alphabetical order, which was slightly disorienting when I would have expected them to be either grouped by topic or presented in chronological order. My disorientation stems from the fact that the commentaries on the 2016 election are effectively out of order. At the same time, I completely understand Scalzi's choice not to organize by topic, because yes, the Trump section would have been a pretty depressing slog.

[ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

solid collection of scalzi's blog posts/essays. he's a very thoughtful and loud human being who tries very hard to do the best and be the best he can, and typically accomplishes it. as he says, once in a while he puts his foot in his mouth - but he always recognizes it and steps up in a way few straight white dudes do.
i wouldn't typically do a little character analysis on an author, but as this is a personal essay collection of a sort, it's important to know the kind of human you're reading the thoughts of!

this isn't so much a read all at once book, so heads up there. (like any essay collection) reading one here and one there satisfied me!
there were some on topics i didn't care much about, or care to read at the moment, but i skimmed them, and they were up to his usual quality and humor (and many beyond).

[CHRISTINA PARKER · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of short essays that were blog posts written between 2013 and 2018. They drew me along until I'd read most of it. The author covers politics and current events mostly, but also eclectic stuff such as parenthood and his love of cats. He is progressive, he freely acknowledges his white male privilege, he seems like a decent human being, and I share his values for the most part, except for his agnosticism. Good thing, because his language at times is so nasty and vitriolic that I know I'd really hate him if his opinions were less compatible with mine. He seems to have some anger issues.

[Paul Franco · Rating 4 out of 5]

The famous sci-fi writer has a blog, and these are some of his posts.
Humor and honesty. That’s what you want from a political commentator, if that’s what you can call John Scalzi in this book. He probably wouldn’t call himself that; he’s self-admittedly too lazy.
One other thing: logic. Unlike most of the internet and its shoot-from-the-hip tweets, these writings take time. They’re well thought out. They look at other sides of the argument and break down why he disagrees with it, or in the infrequent case agrees. Again, that’s pretty rare, and most welcome.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took Virtue Signaling out of the library a few weeks ago when I happened to notice the quote on the inside cover while browsing the display of new books:

'Virtue signaling' is a phrase the dim and bigoted use when they want to discount other people expressing the idea that it would be nice if we could all be essentially and fundamentally decent to each other. - John Scalzi

I picked up the book and decided it was coming home with me right then.

Virtue Signaling is a book of selected posts from Scalzi's blog, called Whatever. I do not read Whatever, have no familiarity with Scalzi's writing beyond Fuzzy Nation (which I read earlier this year), and actually had no idea that he even existed before that. That being said, I went into Virtue Signaling having no idea just how much I would enjoy the kind of frank, thoughtful style has in his nonfiction writing/commentary. This is a book that I ended up purchasing for myself, just so I could highlight the passages and even entire essays that really resonate with me. I really loved this book. It is something I would be happy to recommend to others, and Scalzi is an author that I am very likely to further explore.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always like reading John Scalzi, although the time period of these blog entries made this more of a bummer. Quite a reminder that we could have had a world were T**** was never president. I still enjoyed his blogs on pets and family and writing and all of the other many subjects "Whatever" tackles, though it probably would've been better for my mental health to skip all the political ones in this collection.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of blog posts from John Scalzi which focuses on the disaster that is the Republican Party's condoning of Trumpism, the love and affection he has for his wife and daughter and the influence that teachers and libraries have had on his life.

Well thought through, this collection is still relevant (sometimes sadly, such as when Scalzi looks at the #MeToo movement). Well worth reading.

[Sctechsorceress · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of John Scalzi's Whatever blog entries from resent years. Some were hard to read, only because of the subject matter. Nothing offensive, but some things I did not really want to be reminded of

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't like the organization. I would have preferred chronological or by subject, instead of alphabetical.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 4 out of 5]

33 - 2022

[Dale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated

Agree with opinions but most topics are out of date. Like the stories but think twice about this.

Stick to the novels.

[Abby! · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read along as Scalzi cheerfully expounds on life, books, and pissing off trolls on the internet. Read if you are interested in any of those things.

[Justin Hofstetter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit, before I begin, that I am definitely biased in writing this review; no, I do not know Mr. Scalzi personally, but I have followed him on Twitter ever since I first read Old Man's War, and I know that his and my political views are very much in line (stances on cats, however, are a sticking point).

Virtue Signaling and Other Heresies collects Mr. Scalzi's blog posts from one of the most turbulent periods of ideological clashes in American history since the Civil Rights era (and definitely the most unstable in this reviewer's lifetime); as such, it's difficult to digest reading as a start-to-finish book.

Where this shines is as a collection of well-penned reactions, both immediate and meditated-upon, to changes in the American social and political climate (everything from the minor to the cataclysmic) which dig into the psyche of the type of American who might resist the current Presidential administration as well as those who defend it vehemently; Scalzi is not shy about voicing his disapproval of those who use power and visibility to embolden bigotry and hatred, and writes candidly about the responsibility to use his status as a well-respected White male in a well-regarded profession to champion victims of that bigotry.

[J.D. DeHart · Rating 5 out of 5]

From science fiction and other worlds, John Scalzi takes us next door and down the street. In this book, we see Scalzi’s talents on display through brief and vivid entries.

These are timely topics, handled with wit and the right amount of acerbic insight. Above all, the entries are well-written.

[Deborah Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Scalzi is as noted for his opinionated blog as for his excellent science fiction. Fans will find much to delight in this collection of Scalzi’s thoughtful, often provocative commentary on life, politics, writing, fandom, and more. The entries suffer from the predictable limitations of their original format. That is, there’s a repetition of tone and theme that make reading them in large chunks less than exciting. This is not to say that Scalzi’s collection lacks content or lively prose. Both abound, but as in life, one person’s viewpoint and way of expressing it are consistent. There’s a clear effort to vary more serious topics with humorous ones. For Scalzi fans, this book should be a feast of eloquent, beautifully articulated blog posts, even if they must necessarily be taken in small bites.