I’ve noticed a phenomenon in our culture whereby altruistic actions face much more scrutiny than selfish actions. [...] When I say ‘our culture’, I mean modern WEIRD culture, especially the English-speaking world.
I think you probably generalize too much here. The thing you describe is real, but it is only a “bubble” within the WEIRD population. Or maybe several “bubbles” sharing this specific trait, but not the entire population.
Specifically I think that you would probably get a different reaction from a group of e.g. teachers.
The assumption is that I’m doing good in order to accrue praise and social status, which is called ‘ulterior motives.’
This is a part of it. But the other part is that in some groups, doing good will indeed bring you the praise and status, and in some other groups it will not. You will face a certain degree of suspicion in both, but the latter will also laugh at you, because you are (from their perspective) trying to win the wrong game.
In other words, if you had a magic wand that allowed you to convince people that you are a 100% saint with zero “ulterior motives”… some groups would consider you a hero, but other groups would consider you an idiot.
Your point 4 is close to truth, in my opinion, also as an explanation of how these subcultures interact. If you have a place where 10% of people want to reward doing good, 10% want to laugh at doing good, and 80% just want to do whatever happens to be most popular… well, laughing at someone is easier than being laughed at, so the result is a culture of hipsters who never admit having any value, except ironically (irony is an ego-defense mechanism). The exception to this is political “virtue signaling”, because that brings you allies.
The 10% that wanted to do good will not disappear, but they will learn to hide their values when they are outside their bubble. This sucks for those who are isolated and cannot find the right bubble they could join. Some of them may never even realize that such bubbles exist.
I think you probably generalize too much here. The thing you describe is real, but it is only a “bubble” within the WEIRD population. Or maybe several “bubbles” sharing this specific trait, but not the entire population.
Specifically I think that you would probably get a different reaction from a group of e.g. teachers.
This is a part of it. But the other part is that in some groups, doing good will indeed bring you the praise and status, and in some other groups it will not. You will face a certain degree of suspicion in both, but the latter will also laugh at you, because you are (from their perspective) trying to win the wrong game.
In other words, if you had a magic wand that allowed you to convince people that you are a 100% saint with zero “ulterior motives”… some groups would consider you a hero, but other groups would consider you an idiot.
Your point 4 is close to truth, in my opinion, also as an explanation of how these subcultures interact. If you have a place where 10% of people want to reward doing good, 10% want to laugh at doing good, and 80% just want to do whatever happens to be most popular… well, laughing at someone is easier than being laughed at, so the result is a culture of hipsters who never admit having any value, except ironically (irony is an ego-defense mechanism). The exception to this is political “virtue signaling”, because that brings you allies.
The 10% that wanted to do good will not disappear, but they will learn to hide their values when they are outside their bubble. This sucks for those who are isolated and cannot find the right bubble they could join. Some of them may never even realize that such bubbles exist.