> Action is not signaling. Action is action.
I don't really understand why those would have to be exclusive. I think taking action to help people is important, and if suddenly everyone became aware every time someone helped someone else to the point where it became an expectation, I guess I don't really see why this would be a problem. At the end of the day, if more people are genuinely being helped due to being charitable becoming table stakes, I don't really care whether the help only happened due to ego or due to actual benevolence. I can see it becoming a problem if people weren't actually helping people and only signalling, but I don't really see how that would apply to companies giving people time and space to grieve and then also setting the example for the rest of industry.
But the Samaritan acted. Helped someone. Did a thing.
Action is not signaling. Action is action.
Maybe it helps one’s reputation doing it for the Gram, but you are actually helping another person and that is something.
In this case it was at the cost of their own reputation given how Samaritans were viewed at the time.
The Bible might say that if you are doing it only because of how you feel or what it means reputationally it is not the same as doing it out of compassion alone, but it’s still doing something and different than signaling.