“Whataboutism”: The Strategy to Get Away With Murder
What about Hillary Clinton’s emails? What about the violence in the Old Testament? What about Lebron’s 6 finals losses? — In this week’s post, I’ll be entering into more controversial territory. We need to talk about “whataboutism” and how it is destroying productive everyday conversation across sports, politics and religion.
Definition please
Whataboutism: “ The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.” Oxford Dictionary
“ The association of whataboutism with the Soviet Union began during the Cold War. As the regimes of Josef Stalin and his successors were criticized by the West for human rights atrocities, the Soviet propaganda machine would be ready with a comeback alleging atrocities of equal reprehensibility for which the West was guilty.” Merriam Webster
So why talk about it now?
I am writing this as of July 17th 2018, a day after the press conference between Trump and Vladimir Putin at Helsinki. After the press conference, the two world leaders were interviewed by Fox News. The world looked on as these two individuals were asked similar questions in various forms on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. election. This was an exhibition of “whataboutism” in its purest form.
When asked about potential Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Trump promptly deferred to the Democrats needing an excuse as to why they lost the election. He alluded to Hillary Clinton’s server not being taken by the FBI, and then to Peter Strzok’s “shameful” public testimony at the congressional oversight hearing.
Do you see the correlation to the previously mentioned definition? Trump is countering with other situations instead of directly answering the question. This isn’t an anomaly, he always does this. It’s truly deception, Trump knows the answer won’t be in his favor.
Later that day after the press conference, Chris Wallace of Fox News questioned Putin as to why his political opponents end up dead. Putin deferred to the fact that everyone has political rivals and even U.S. presidents ended up dead as well as civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr ended up dead…
Clearly another example of counter accusation. Instead of answering the direct question, Putin is pointing to the West’s “hypocrisy”, using past examples that having nothing to do with Putin killing off his political rivals. So we need to stop focusing on the examples that are given through “whataboutism” and pay attention to how the answer was delivered in the first place.
The Importance?
We are unknowingly being caught into this form of argument because of the way it was purposed. Being able to escape these kinds of situations is precisely why Trump and Putin are so formidable as speakers. Both of these men have gotten away with controversy after controversy using the same technique over and over again. The effectiveness behind Trump and Putin’s use of whataboutism lies in their ability to deflect attention onto other people. By not directly answering these questions and redirecting the audience’s attention, they are hiding behind a logical fallacy known as tu quoque to avoid giving a potentially dangerous answer.
What’s even more crucial to understand is that when someone is being accused and he/she defers to another person/subject, that is neither an acceptance or a denial of the accusation. Let me repeat, that is NEITHER an acceptance or denial of the accusation.
The links to the press conference and Putin’s interview with Chris Wallace will be at the bottom, watch and judge for yourself, but research before challenging anything I have mentioned. I even linked the Access Hollywood apology from Trump to show precedence of whataboutism when he mentions Hillary and Bill Clinton.
Time For Change
We are feeling like it is normal to deflect blame onto others to protect our own image or those we want to protect. It’s bringing a lack of accountability to the highest degree. I emphasize this because we are in a time in which we’re getting away with serious accusations by trying to bring others down to save ourselves. It’s disgusting.
Even when it’s not about ourselves specifically, like in the cases of sports and religion, we recognize the flaws in other subjects to bring into the conversation in order to distract the accuser. If violence in the Quran is in question, many would turn to the violence written in The Old Testament as a counter for equivalence. But what was really accomplished? Nothing! There was nothing discussed as to why violence occurred in the Quran, just a cowardly subject change instead of a legitimate defense of the Quran. My advice? If you can’t properly defend without changing subjects then you shouldn’t contribute at all. Period. So if we want to have substantive conversations, let’s stop pointing to hypocrisy but either take responsibility or defend with facts. This post is also to bring awareness that when a response falls into the realm of “whataboutism”, you need to be fully conscious of what is occurring in order to lead the conversation for the better.
I don’t care if you’re a Republican, Democrat, Trump supporter, Christian, Muslim, or a sports team fanboy. Honesty and integrity will move society to a better place always. Meaningful conversations will bring correction to the issues at hand. You must always be willing to learn instead of being emotionally stubborn. Look for the proper answers instead of always assuming you know them already. At the end of the day we will all be judged for our actions, so we better judge and fix ourselves now before it’s too late, because I can surely tell you, there’s no opportunity to accuse anyone in front of our Creator.
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
- Buddha
