Often serving as the building blocks of glittering generalities, virtue words shape perception by linking people, ideas, or actions to deeply held values and transferring those feelings they inspire onto their message. Words like 'freedom,' 'honor,' and 'strength' carry significant emotional weight and help create the appeal that makes glittering generalities so effective. However, virtue words can also stand alone, functioning independently to evoke the same positive emotions.
Virtue words resonate deeply because they tap into universal values and ideals, triggering emotional reasoning
- a cognitive distortion in which a person concludes that their emotional reaction to something reflects its objective reality.
and bypassing logical evaluation. Words like “decency” or “prosperity” elicit positive emotional responses that overshadow the need for evidence or context. This makes individuals more likely to align with the speaker or message based on the emotional weight of the language rather than its actual substance.
The ambiguity of virtue words also enhances their power. While these terms carry strong emotional connotations, their meaning is context-dependent, allowing audiences to interpret them in ways that align with their personal beliefs. This flexibility ensures broad appeal while sidestepping the need for clarity or precision.
Virtue words manipulate perception by transferring their positive emotional associations onto the speaker, product, or idea being promoted. In politics, a leader might invoke terms like “freedom” or “justice” to frame their agenda as morally virtuous, even if the specifics of that agenda are unclear or contested. For example, a politician might claim to have a “strong” foreign policy, without explaining exactly what that entails.
In advertising, virtue words are often used to build trust and admiration for products. Descriptions such as “pure,” “organic,” or “authentic” create a positive impression, even when these claims are vague or unsupported. By associating the product with desirable qualities, advertisers encourage consumers to form favorable opinions based on emotion rather than evidence.
Critiquing virtue words is challenging because the universal appeal of virtue words often makes them feel self-justifying. Audiences rarely question why these words are being used or how they contribute to the argument, making it difficult to highlight their manipulative potential without alienating the audience.
Recognizing virtue words requires an awareness of their emotional impact and rhetorical purpose. Pay special attention to whether the words contribute to a meaningful argument or serve merely as rhetorical window dressing. When used in isolation, virtue words are often overemphasized and presented in a laundry-list fashion, disconnected from any coherent or substantive argument. When embedded in glittering generalities, they are strung together to form emotionally appealing yet vague statements.
By questioning how virtue words contribute to a message, audiences can better evaluate whether they are being used to enhance understanding or simply manipulate perception through association.
