It’s ‘Like’ solidarity

People often talk about performative politics these days, virtue signalling and the like. To be honest, I’ve always thought, at face value anyway, that that’s a good thing – why wouldn’t you want people to signal favourable virtues? Clearly the worry is that the signal is not followed by any meaningful action. And I think this is right, a lack of action often betrays a lock of concern.

But what if the signal itself were to be the action?

There’s a lot of superficial buttons these days but surely one of the most banal is the ‘like’ button. One of Facebook’s most iconic, and sadly successful, features, an aphrodisiac for engagements; though apparently its inventor now regrets his decision and worries that “everyone is distracted, all of the time” *surprise surprise.* Anyway, we throw out likes left, right and centre – quite literally out of compulsion. However, on occasions, ‘likes’ can carry more value than their standard market rate.

Some philosophers understand solidarity as a mutual care, where not only do both parties care about one another, but they care that they care. Caring for someone often involves meeting their needs, but sometimes this isn’t possible. You may trust their needs are being met by someone else or, sadly, you might just not be in a position to help. Nonetheless, you can still manifest your care in other ways.

Since Spencer died I have found a really nice Twitter community of other souls who have lost loved ones in nefarious circumstances (mostly at the hands of the state or through its failings). It’s beautiful to see so many other amazingly strong individuals and families sticking together, trying to get justice for their relatives. We share a lot of (tragically) niche common ground from inquests to prevention of future death reports and everything in between. It’s hard to explain the scale of these injustices to people who don’t have similar experiences often because the harms, and the language used to explain them, are so obfuscated by mountains of bureaucratic bullshit (sometimes deliberately).

Nonetheless, I hope these people know that when I like their posts I am trying to do much more than that. I am letting them know that I am here, that I care and that they are not alone. I think this because that is how I feel when they like a photo of Spencer, with a beaming smile on his bike on a sunny day in the park. I know they have felt the same pain and that they carry it in their hearts.

On occasions we comment or send a little message, but this is not to set a standard that always needs to be upheld. Sometimes we’re in a rush and sometimes we’re sleepy. But it’s okay to just click that glowing thumbs up because in that moment, when I see that little red heart on my phone, I know that you care and sometimes, that’s enough.