"Behold!"

The Empty Rhetoric of Reactionary Media

This is, after all, a philosophy blog.

Spend enough time on social media and you'll notice a peculiar rhetorical pattern—especially among right-wing accounts. It's not an argument. It's not a policy proposal. It's not even a fully formed thought. It's simply: “Behold!”

A video of a blue-haired teacher discussing gender.

A screenshot of a college course on race theory.

A grainy clip of a drag queen reading to children.

A teenager crying about climate change.

No substantive commentary. No ethical framework. No analysis. Just “look at this” followed by an implicit, unstated conclusion that you, the audience, are expected to supply. This isn't just a lazy form of argument—it's the deliberate evasion of argument altogether. It's the substitution of shared aesthetic revulsion for actual moral reasoning.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And much of what passes for political discourse today is nothing more than pointing at things and sneering.

No account better exemplifies this “Behold!” aesthetic than Libs of TikTok, an operation dedicated entirely to reposting videos of left-leaning individuals—often teachers, LGBTQ people, or progressive activists—with minimal commentary. The business model is simple: find someone saying or doing something that will trigger reflexive disgust in a conservative audience, present it without context or argument, and let the audience's preloaded assumptions do the rest.

Similarly, accounts like Catturd—yes, this is an influential voice in our political discourse—build massive followings through this same pattern. Post something “the left” purportedly believes or does, add an emoji or sarcastic one-liner, and watch the engagement roll in from an audience trained to treat observation as argument.

This is not a critique of conservatism as a political philosophy. Edmund Burke made arguments. William F. Buckley made arguments. Even Ronald Reagan, for all his simplifications, made explicit moral claims that could be engaged with, debated, refuted, or accepted. What we're witnessing now is something different—the replacement of moral reasoning with a kind of performative disgust that requires no justification because it's aimed at an audience that already shares the unstated conclusion.

The “Behold!” gesture is fundamentally parasitic. It contributes nothing to discourse while extracting engagement from it. It makes no claims that can be refuted. It articulates no principles that might be inconsistently applied. It simply points and expects—demands—that you see what it sees, feel what it feels, condemn what it condemns.

“Look at these people,” it says. “Aren't they awful?”

And if you ask, “Why are they awful?”—if you demand the articulation of an actual moral claim—you've already lost. You've revealed yourself as someone who doesn't already know, who doesn't already feel the correct revulsion. You've outed yourself as Other.

This is deliberate. The absence of argument isn't a flaw in this rhetorical strategy; it's the central feature. By never making explicit claims, the “Behold!” brigade immunizes itself against counterargument. By never articulating moral principles, it avoids accountability for consistency or hypocrisy. By outsourcing moral judgment to the audience, it creates a false sense of consensus—”everyone” can see why this is bad, so there's no need to explain it.

What makes this rhetorical move so insidious is that it feels like an argument. It generates the emotional satisfaction of having made a point without doing the work of actually making one. It creates the illusion of moral clarity while bypassing moral reasoning entirely. It looks, to casual observation, like political discourse—videos are shared, ideas are apparently discussed, conclusions seem to be reached—but it's actually just a sophisticated form of tribal signaling.

The philosophical emptiness at the heart of this approach becomes clear when you compare it to actual conservative thought. Traditional conservatism made arguments about human nature, social order, the proper role of government, the importance of tradition and incremental change. You could disagree with these arguments, but they were arguments—propositions with supporting evidence and reasoning that could be engaged with on their merits.

The “Behold!” approach, by contrast, offers nothing to engage with. It's pure cultural semiotics: this thing is coded as “left,” “left” is coded as “bad,” therefore this thing is bad. No further explanation needed or provided.

This collapse of argument into aesthetic revulsion isn't just intellectually lazy—it's democratically corrosive. Meaningful self-governance requires the articulation of claims and reasons that can be debated in good faith. It requires the possibility of persuasion across tribal lines. It requires, at minimum, the ability to understand what others believe and why they believe it. The “Behold!” approach undermines all of this. It treats the other side not as fellow citizens with different values or priorities that might be reasonably discussed, but as inherently absurd, self-evidently wrong, worthy only of mockery.

What's particularly striking about this rhetorical pattern is how it has spread beyond explicitly partisan accounts to shape ostensibly “centrist” or “moderate” discourse as well. Figures like Joe Rogan often employ this same technique—presenting something “the left” supposedly believes or does, expressing bemused disbelief or mild concern, but never actually engaging with the ideas or articulating clear moral principles of their own. The stance is always reactive, never constructive. Always pointing, never building.

The strategic advantage of this approach is obvious. By never making explicit claims, you can never be pinned down. By never articulating moral principles, you never have to apply them consistently. By outsourcing moral reasoning to your audience, you create a sense of shared understanding without having to do the work of actually creating it. It's a perfect strategy for building engagement without accountability.

But the cost is profound. This approach collapses the productive tension that democratic discourse requires—the tension between differing moral frameworks, between competing visions of the good, between various understandings of justice or liberty or equality. Instead of maintaining that tension through reasoned argument, it simply dismisses one side as self-evidently absurd.

The “Behold!” approach represents what I've previously called “the collapse of productive tension.” Rather than holding the tension between competing values or perspectives—a difficult but necessary task in a diverse democracy—it simply collapses that tension through dismissal. It's not that the left's concerns about social justice are being weighed against other important values and found wanting; it's that they're being treated as inherently absurd, requiring no counter-argument at all.

This is fundamentally different from actual moral reasoning. Moral reasoning requires articulating principles, applying them consistently, acknowledging trade-offs and tensions, and explaining why one value or outcome should take precedence over another in a particular context. The “Behold!” approach does none of this. It simply asserts through implication, judges without criteria, condemns without explanation.

The irony is that many who employ this rhetorical strategy claim to be defending reason, logic, and objective truth against emotional subjectivity. Yet their approach is entirely vibe-based—it depends on shared feeling rather than articulated thought, on aesthetic repulsion rather than logical refutation. It doesn't analyze the claims being made; it simply holds them up for ridicule based on how they look or sound to an audience already primed to reject them.

Consider how Libs of TikTok operates. A teacher might post a thoughtful video explaining how they discuss LGBTQ issues when they arise in class. This video gets reposted without argument—just “behold!”—and the audience fills in the blanks: indoctrination, grooming, inappropriate. No one has to actually explain why it's wrong to acknowledge the existence of gay people to students. No one has to articulate what educational principle is being violated. No one has to engage with the teacher's actual reasoning. The mere fact that a certain type of person is discussing a certain type of topic is presented as self-evidently damning.

This approach makes meaningful deliberation impossible. How can you debate someone who isn't making an argument? How can you find common ground with someone who isn't articulating principles? How can you reason together if one side's position consists entirely of pointing and sneering?

The path forward isn't easy, but it begins with recognizing this pattern for what it is: the evasion of moral reasoning, not its embodiment. When someone says “behold!” without articulating why what you're beholding is problematic, demand articulation. When someone treats their conclusion as self-evident, require evidence. When someone substitutes aesthetic revulsion for moral argument, insist on actual arguments.

But more importantly, we must model an alternative—a form of discourse that maintains tension rather than collapsing it, that articulates principles rather than merely signaling tribal affiliations, that treats those with whom we disagree as fellow citizens rather than as exhibits in a freak show.

This doesn't mean abandoning moral clarity or passionate advocacy. On the contrary, it means grounding that clarity and passion in actual reasoning that others could, in principle, engage with and potentially be persuaded by. It means doing the hard work of explaining why something is wrong, not just assuming that everyone already knows or that those who don't are beyond the pale.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And political discourse that consists solely of pointing and sneering contributes nothing to our understanding of the complex moral questions facing our society. It's not argument. It's not even commentary. It's just tribal signaling dressed up as insight.

The challenge for those who care about the health of our democratic discourse is to resist the pull of this easy, empty rhetoric—not just when it comes from others, but when it tempts us as well. The momentary satisfaction of shared contempt is a poor substitute for the harder but more meaningful work of articulating and defending actual moral principles.

The “Behold!” brigade offers nothing but confirmation of what its audience already believes. We must demand—and offer—something more: reasons, principles, arguments that could, in theory, be engaged with by those who don't already share our conclusions. Otherwise, we're not engaged in discourse at all—just in elaborate forms of group identification that masquerade as political thought.

The erosion of democratic norms begins not with dramatic violations but with the gradual replacement of reasoned deliberation by tribal signaling—with the substitution of “behold!” for “here's why.” Resisting this erosion requires more than just pointing out its emptiness; it requires demonstrating a better way—showing what it looks like to make actual arguments, to articulate actual principles, to engage in actual moral reasoning.

Against the cheap satisfaction of pointing and sneering, we must offer the deeper fulfillment of thinking and explaining. Against the collapse of tension through dismissal, we must model the maintenance of tension through engagement. Against the easy tribalism of shared contempt, we must demonstrate the harder but more rewarding work of principled disagreement.

The “Behold!” approach isn't just intellectually lazy—it's democratically destructive. And the best response isn't just to criticize it but to transcend it—to show what actual political discourse looks like, even (especially) when discussing the most contentious issues of our time.

The future of our democracy depends not just on defending particular policies or candidates, but on preserving the possibility of meaningful deliberation across tribal lines. That future is threatened not just by those who reject democratic norms outright, but by those who empty those norms of substance—who replace argument with observation, reasoning with pointing, moral clarity with shared contempt.

“Behold!” is not an argument. It's time we started demanding real ones.