What about whataboutism?

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PJH_74

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Has anyone noticed, especially in some sectors, that the answer to one scandal or another is to say what about so and so often from the “opposite side”? It’s used as a deflection to avoid any meaningful discussion or to turn the story against the “opposite side”. I do not see comedy as a part of this, it has always been there and has been more more than willing to satire just about anyone. Why do we take these for an answer, this rarely happened just a decade or two ago? You wouldn’t take this from your kids:

Bob: Jack punched me!
Jack: Oh, what about that time you smashed my Legos?

Or your spouse:

Kathy: I caught you cheating on me!
Ralph: Yeah, but what about that time for were flirting with that guy?

It seems to me that “whataboutism” is a major factor in the divisions within this country. Are we willing to hold our “side” accountable? I personally believe all of this is being used to make money from books, advertising, and the like
 
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‘Whataboutism’ reminds me of the universal comeback we used as kids when someone called us names: ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ or the clunky ‘I’m a mirror and you’re glue; what ever you call me bounces off and sticks to you’. The whole level of discourse in this country has deteriorated drastically over the past generation or so.
 
It is deflection. And it’s because people seem to think that once they make a decision about something, that they can never change their mind, lest they be wrong.

This, I think, is the root of the problem. No one feels that they are wrong about anything anymore.
We have become a society of individuals, who feel that we should not be putting our beliefs onto someone else, and that so long as I am a good person (whatever that means) I am always in the right.

Once I can admit that I am wrong about something, then I can do things to help right myself. If I don’t believe that anything I do is wrong, then I have no reason to change.
 
DaveBj said:
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kill051:
‘Whataboutism’ reminds me of the universal comeback we used as kids when someone called us names:
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“So’s your ol’ man!”

😃

D
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Or, “yo mama”!
 
It is how we point out inconsistency.
You are so critical of my faults but “what about” (you seem to ignore) your own faults.
 
Oh yeah, I have a mote in my eye? What about the beam in yours?
 
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CilladeRoma said:
It is deflection. And it’s because people seem to think that once they make a decision about something, that they can never change their mind, lest they be wrong.
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That’s exactly right. And what people don’t seem to realise is that this inability to admit error, this pride, this obstinacy is nothing more nor less than the sin of Lucifer, when he rebelled against the Most High in Heaven. For some reason, we fight like crazy to maintain our mistaken position. And God forbid the person correcting us does so in a gentle, reasonable manner, for our tendency is then to redouble our efforts to stay ‘in the right’, when all that’s needed for us to regain grace is to surrender that hard, black stone of pride and self-regard and rejoin the rest of the humble brotherhood. Easy to say, not so easy to do.
 
This always drives me nuts in the politics threads. 😝 If you have to resort to “What about the time your side did the same exact thing,” it means you might be defending something that either can’t be defended or shouldn’t be defended.

I think it’s so engrained in us that if we give an inch, our opponents will take a mile. We seem to be afraid to just say, “Well, hey, you make a good point.”

Of course, I’m sure there are plenty of times that people say these things more with a mind to draw attention to the hypocrisy of “the other” rather than engage in it themselves. And that’s fine. But I still think it would help to begin by saying, “Hey, that’s a good point.” Then you can ask, “Why didn’t that apply when your guy did the same thing?”
 
Loud-living-dogma said:
Oh yeah, I have a mote in my eye? What about the beam in yours?
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Which is exactly why Christ said FIRST clean out your own eye, then worry about the eyes of others. Goes both ways really - for motes and beams.

‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ and all that.
 
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