Whataboutism isn’t a fallacy and is widely misused online.
If someone says “I think x should stop because of y”. It is a valid argumentative response to say “y also occurs with z, so should z also stop?”. It is argumentatively revealing either hypocrisy, or that the original imperative relies on additional, unstated arguments/assumptions/biases.
Maybe I’m confused, but I thought whataboutism was more like “you are saying I am doing X bad thing? What about Y bad thing you’re doing, let’s discuss that instead”.
It’s a deflection technique, not a check on logical consistency.
> “you are saying I am doing X bad thing? What about Y bad thing you’re doing, let’s discuss that instead”.
no one is generally expecting or even asking for "let’s discuss that instead". what they are doing is trying to point out that your lack of of care about Y implies that you never actually cared about X in the first place but rather you only care about me doing X.
often times X is actually bad but human nature is such that no one actually cares about it while wanting to appear to when locked down on it. for this reason arguing about X directly is bad optics.
whataboustism is basically an effort to draw attention to the selective enforcement of norms, laws, morality, whatever. hypocrisy is implied.
Whataboutism isn’t a fallacy and is widely misused online.
If someone says “I think x should stop because of y”. It is a valid argumentative response to say “y also occurs with z, so should z also stop?”. It is argumentatively revealing either hypocrisy, or that the original imperative relies on additional, unstated arguments/assumptions/biases.
I don’t think that’s whataboutism?
Maybe I’m confused, but I thought whataboutism was more like “you are saying I am doing X bad thing? What about Y bad thing you’re doing, let’s discuss that instead”.
It’s a deflection technique, not a check on logical consistency.
no one is generally expecting or even asking for "let’s discuss that instead". what they are doing is trying to point out that your lack of of care about Y implies that you never actually cared about X in the first place but rather you only care about me doing X.
often times X is actually bad but human nature is such that no one actually cares about it while wanting to appear to when locked down on it. for this reason arguing about X directly is bad optics.
whataboustism is basically an effort to draw attention to the selective enforcement of norms, laws, morality, whatever. hypocrisy is implied.
1 reply →