In a debate between factions of sufficient size, there’s bound to be some fault on both sides. ‘Whataboutism’ is when you attempt to compare faults that aren’t comparable within the conversation of the context.
i.e. “You criticize Nixon, but what do you have to say about Chappaquiddick?” Perhaps I agree there was a crime there, but we’re talking about Nixon, and Nixon’s deeds should be weighed on their own merits.
The argumentum ad hominem of tu quoque is a powerful diversionary tactic, the only way it will stop is if people start to call it out in both their own personal arguments and in the arguments of others.
Like all ad hominems it does nothing to help resolve a conflict, just to distract from the core problem.
Pointing out that the vast majority (>98%) of people arguing politics are partisan hacks that shouldn’t be taken seriously is much more important than any individual issue. So I’m glad there are people out there who point that out when it applies, which is 100% of the time.
Yes, exactly this. “Whataboutism” is used as a distraction when the debater – almost always on the right – has no other argument, and it fails because the comparison is usually a glaringly false equivalence.
John Oliver did a very good piece on how Trump and Fox News have used whataboutism:
Yes, the John Oliver link above is at least one example, but I’ve seen it mentioned before. As Oliver notes, it’s actually an old Soviet propaganda technique.
I haven’t done an actual count, but I think that even more than Trump himself, Kellyanne Conway uses it just about every time she opens her mouth, like a robot. She must do it even in her sleep.
Whataboutism can look very similar to tu quoque, but there is a difference. Tu Quoque r is about claiming hypocrisy, and remains focused on the subject at hand. It deflects criticism by saying that you don’t actually believe what you say.
Whataboutism is an attempt to redirect the conversation to be about another topic. Often it uses the guise of implied hypocrisy, but the point is to change the subject so that you’re no longer talking about the original criticism. It is a specialized version of a non sequitur.
The advantage of the latter is that the issue can be only superficially related to the original issue. It doesn’t matter if you prove hypocrisy or not. All that matters is that you get the other side defending against a bad allegation. Heck, the claim doesn’t even have to be true.
These attempts to control the conversation have been pioneered by trolls online, and made political by the alt-right, and then copied by others. No, it doesn’t get anyone on your side, but it does deflect criticism remarkably well.
You also get “whatabouts” like “Trump said this horrible thing yesterday!” “Yeah, but whatabout that guy photographed holding a horrible sign at a Democrat rally? Both sides!”
It’s closely related to things like the History Channel having a “fair and balanced” debate about ancient astronauts from Atlantis diverting Mars’ orbit, by having one guy arguing each side.
I have seen numerous whatabouts in informal discussions on social media. It is generally supposed to look like an appeal to hypocrisy (which itself is a fallacy but many people take the bait) but in reality is just a diversion tactic, and has a smattering of strawman to boot.
“Since taking office, Trump has made over 4000 statements that are objectively false.”
“What about when Obama said if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan?”
The response has nothing at all to do with the original assertion. It is an attempt to change the argument from, “Trump has been shown to lie” to “Trump is bad and Obama was good.” The response* per se *may have some merit if that were the issue being discussed, but it’s not.
Whataboutism is redirecting attention to something unrelated to the issue at hand in an attempt to change the point of the discussion, and generally motivated by a highly defensive posture on the original assertion. (In the example above, I have yet to see any Trump supporter attempt to refute the fact of the assertion, documented by the Washington Post, but I have seen a lot of whatabouts.)
I’m still not seeing it. Imagine this:
GOP voter: Kavanaugh has been unfairly accused because there is no corroboration of Ford’s allegation!
DEM voter: Oh, you were all about condemning Bill Clinton even though there was no corroboration of Paula Jones’ allegation!!
Then the conversation descends into how similar or different the allegations were and the motivations of the parties to bring each allegation or to take one side or the other.
Tu quoque absolutely diverts from the subject at hand.
Your example is one of tu quoque, because you are attacking the speaker. Yes, it’s a diversion, but that’s not the only distinction. This is whataboutism:
GOP voter: Kavanaugh has been unfairly accused because there is no corroboration of Ford’s allegation!
DEM voter: What about Bill Clinton? There was no corroboration of Paula Jones’ allegation!
In whataboutism there is not necessarily a direct attack on the speaker but rather an attempt to draw a parallel to another situation as an alternative to a direct refutation of the original assertion.
It is a dangerously effective way of derailing a debate. If the first person says “Putin has people executed without trial” and the response is “Well, what about us, we do it too”, you need to get the train back on the track by saying, “so you are saying you are in favor of presidents and world leaders executing people without trial, is that right?”
I think whataboutism has a component of false equivalence in order to not just be pointing out hypocrisy.
For example, Trump supporters are now railing against dangerous left wing mobs who don’t support the rule of law. It’s fair to say “what about” you guys chanting “Lock her up!” at political rallies aimed at political opponents because there are no significant dangerous left wing mobs who don’t support the rule of law. Otherwise, they might have something of a valid point.
There’s also a time component. Pointing out Bill Clinton’s legitimately sketchy past with women does us no good because that was 20 years ago. If the same thing was going on right now, they might have something of a valid point.
And at the end of the day, whataboutism comparing Republicans and Democrats being equally extreme have to account for one uncomfortable fact: Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican party. For the parties to be equal, there would have to be someone equal and opposite as the leader of the Democratic party, and as far as I can tell, there is nobody remotely similar to Donald Trump anywhere near the top of the Democratic party.
No, you’re still discussing the same subject. You’re discussing what exactly makes it wrong to do X. There’s actually a possible valid argument in there, if you can establish the similarities. You could use this to establish the line.
With whataboutism, it would go like this:
G: Kavanaugh has been unfairly accused because there is no corroboration of Ford’s allegation:
D: What about Bill Clinton? What about Pizzagate? What about about (third thing)?
G: <starts to explain how those are different>
D: Yeah, of course you say they’re different, rape apologist.
Note, it’s quite hard to do this when you invert things like this. The left basically doesn’t use whataboutism, because it’s an anti-intellectual tactic. The point is to avoid discussion.
This is how I usually respond. “Wait, are you saying both acts are OK or both acts are wrong? Which one?”
And the only way out of this is for the other person to admit both acts are OK and point out that I, sometime in the past, also thought this act was OK when it happened on “my side”.
Let us not complicate the matter to much.
Whataboutism is when you answer a question with:”what about [something else]”
The John Oliver clip linked above is full of people saying exactly that.
There is no dispute or confusion about what it is. The key point in the OP is
The answer to that is not trivially simple, hence all the posts.
It has never been a valid exposure of hypocrisy. It is a diversionary tactic disguised as an exposure of hypocrisy. It changes the focus of the argument from the topic being argued to an attack on the person making the argument.
nm
Of course.
But also, this is not even an adequate definition of what it is:
No, it’s not just that.