Whataboutism as a Rhetorical Tool

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

EXCEPT, when it comes to questions such as US driving its military forces into Venezuela -- for one example only -- what aboutism is really asking , is the fundamental, essential question:

Show us an example where the US driving its military (and other) forces into another country ever made anything better for the average person of that country.

Rather than, usually, making them worse off, hmmmm?  Especially when the US retreats taking its marbles home with them, and leaving all their supporters ... well you know how they are left, especially translators, facilitators etc. yes.?

I absolutely don’t want the US to intervene militarilily in Venezuala.  That said are you arguing that if the US does it needs to apply equal amounts of force everywhere in the world with horrible dictatorial rulers simultaneously or such an action in Venezuala is hypocritical?

Why are you making an exception to the Fallacy of Relative Privation in this context, but not others?

Because the use of force is problematic to begin with in all contexts?

[House Balstroko]

 Whataboutism is often used as a deflection tool, but it can often underline valid lapses in morality. However, it also gets in the way of dealing with the issue at hand.

Take the following non political examples:

a) You witness your friend perpetuating a crime and decide to turn a blind eye

b) You witness a stranger perpetuating a crime and intervene to stop him

Is your attempt at stopping the second individual justified given that you decided to give the first one a pass? 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, House Balstroko said:

 Whataboutism is often used as a deflection tool, but it can often underline valid lapses in morality. However, it also gets in the way of dealing with the issue at hand.

Take the following non political examples:

a) You witness your friend perpetuating a crime and decide to turn a blind eye

b) You witness a stranger perpetuating a crime and intervene to stop him

Is your attempt at stopping the second individual justified given that you decided to give the first one a pass? 

 

Humans are hypocritical.  Always have been and always will be.  If you insist upon perfect consistency before anyone can act against any “bad” thing no one will ever act against a “bad” thing.

Have you ever heard the expression “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”?

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I was on the way home from work this week talking about eating less meat to reduce my carbon footprint, and the person I was talking to literally said, “well what about the factories in China?”

It’s almost always a self-serving deflection tool.

[Zorral]

52 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That said are you arguing that if the US does it needs to apply equal amounts of force everywhere in the world

No.  I am saying when the US does it, it does it in for the sake of vast corporate interests, and it always has done, from doing so in the Caribbean and Latin America for the benefit of US corporations of sugar, mining, fruit etc, and in the Middle East, starting before WWI in favor of Rockefeller and what became Standard Oil -- not to mention the millions the Clintons have made from Haiti since THEIR interventions, etc. etc. etc. etc.

It's never improved the lives of the average person living in these regions.

[House Balstroko]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Humans are hypocritical.  Always have been and always will be.  If you insist upon perfect consistency before anyone can act against any “bad” thing no one will ever act against a “bad” thing.

Have you ever heard the expression “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”?

That’s exactly how I feel about the issue at large. I understand the purpose behind the application of moral consistency and in keeping up with objectivity across the board, but as you pointed out humans are hypocrites, therefore they will apply subjectivity into their critical thinking.

This often ends up getting in the way of forward momentum, for better or worse, depending on the issue at hand. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

No.  I am saying when the US does it, it does it in for the sake of vast corporate interests, and it always has done, from doing so in the Caribbean and Latin America for the benefit of US corporations of sugar, mining, fruit etc, and in the Middle East, starting before WWI in favor of Rockefeller and what became Standard Oil -- not to mention the millions the Clintons have made from Haiti since THEIR interventions, etc. etc. etc. etc.

It's never improved the lives of the average person living in these regions.

Yep. So the “whatabout” reply is aimed at questioning the motives behind the position. Which is a legitimate question, and should be debated on a case by case basis, rather than trying to close it down with a knee jerk “That’s the whataboutism fallacy!”

 

[maarsen]

4 hours ago, sologdin said:

kids, if you're on trial for murdering a person, the defense strategy of whatabout ted bundy watabout dahmer WUTBOUT HITLAR results in a conviction.  this is beyond basic.

In my role as a union exec I represent workers who are disciplined for various rule infractions. Inevitably the whatabout so and so defense comes up. We always tell them that  is NOT the road you want to go down.

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Disagree. A “whataboutism” as you call it may raise an entirely valid point. It need not invalidate the issue originally raised by the recipient of the “whatabout” accusation, but it certainly can be used to raise questions about his prioritisation of issues or the motives behind the position he is taking.

In some cases it might be a fallacy but in others it might well raise a worthy counterpoint.

For example if someone said I should go to significant discomfort to reduce my carbon footprint I feel it is quite legitimate to ask whatabout say China who is building a new factory every week or whatever the relevant statistic is.

The argument could then quite legitimately be that we should rather focus on forcing that totalitarian dictatorship of 1.5 billion people to cut its carbon output than focusing on my tiny comparative impact just because I am a closer and easier target.

Irony level: super turbo max !!!!

Hold on, I've got a rebuttal, and believe it or not, it involves nuking China.  I hear you on the global warming.  But hear ME out -- Dunno.  Just love posting about nuking other countries.  Like instead of global warming, what about nuking China?

[Clueless Northman]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Humans are hypocritical.  Always have been and always will be.  If you insist upon perfect consistency before anyone can act against any “bad” thing no one will ever act against a “bad” thing.

Have you ever heard the expression “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”?

In other words: "It's OK if you're a Democrat/Republican". Well, screw that. If humans can't take it when they're shown to be utter hypocrites devoid of honour and virtue and can't stick to intellectual honesty and consistency, then they're scum.

Fact is, just as often as we see genuine whataboutism strictly used to deflect the debate like some sort of Chewbacca defense, we see accusations of whataboutism used to deflect the legitimate argument that people/firm/organization/country X or Y uses double standards and actually does what it accuses others of doing - in which case the ethical and intellectually honest position is that no, said people/country can't condemn or complain when someone else does what they're already doing, or else should admit the error and should be calling for both of them to be punished equally.

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

No.  I am saying when the US does it, it does it in for the sake of vast corporate interests, and it always has done, from doing so in the Caribbean and Latin America for the benefit of US corporations of sugar, mining, fruit etc, and in the Middle East, starting before WWI in favor of Rockefeller and what became Standard Oil -- not to mention the millions the Clintons have made from Haiti since THEIR interventions, etc. etc. etc. etc.

It's never improved the lives of the average person living in these regions.

Apparently we should just assume the US’ intentions are totally benign when it “suddenly” realizes human-rights are a thing for other people and says they’re going to fight for it-while actively supporting dictatorships. That’s just a slight inconsistency. It’s totally not a big deal that those spearheading this push have a history of respecting/defending authoritarian regimes when said regimes benefit them. We should take it as a given they won’t exploit the country they say they wish to save for their own  profit in the end

But seriously there must be an actual reason given to why a regime change for a non-US friendly regime other than trotting court supposed acts by the regime they want to dispose that can’t just supposedly doing bad stuff that other US allies do, a lot of time, to a far greater extent. 

Seriously, we might as well say you shouldn’t bring up a white Judge’s biased sentencing against POC for when they commit a crime, and point to how he gives them far longer  than he does white people who did the exact same thing crimes.  We should just be happy the judge eventually does “the right thing” when it’s against the people he dislikes.

[sologdin]

FFS it is not a tu quoque fallacy to criticize another state's policy--unless that criticism is intended as a defense in a colloquy that proceeds specifically upon accusations against one's own state.

the easy answer is that we'll hang their fascists from lampposts after we hang our own.  all fair, see? all this worry about a hypocrisy gap is just an inability to stay on target--michael bolton we're really gonna need you to focus up and never mind the aristotelian distraction of the ethos.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Why do people focus on whataboutism so much when the people doing the accusing are likely guilty of it too?

[AverageGuy]

 

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

FFS it is not a tu quoque fallacy to criticize another state's policy--unless that criticism is intended as a defense in a colloquy that proceeds specifically upon accusations against one's own state.

but what about ignoratio elenchi?

[sologdin]

ha did you just whatabout my argument with a strawperson about strawperson fallacies?  nice! i suppose it might be said i whatabouted the thread by deploying relative privation above with the hitler reference.

[Zorral]

13 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Apparently we should just assume the US’ intentions are totally benign when it “suddenly” realizes human-rights are a thing for other people and says they’re going to fight for it-while actively supporting dictatorships. That’s just a slight inconsistency. It’s totally not a big deal that those spearheading this push have a history of respecting/defending authoritarian regimes when said regimes benefit them. We should take it as a given they won’t exploit the country they say they wish to save for their own  profit in the end

But seriously there must be an actual reason given to why a regime change for a non-US friendly regime other than trotting court supposed acts by the regime they want to dispose that can’t just supposedly doing bad stuff that other US allies do, a lot of time, to a far greater extent. 

Seriously, we might as well say you shouldn’t bring up a white Judge’s biased sentencing against POC for when they commit a crime, and point to how he gives them far longer  than he does white people who did the exact same thing crimes.  We should just be happy the judge eventually does “the right thing” when it’s against the people he dislikes.

You are missing the essential factor that every time the US fostered militarily and in other ways regime change the consequences for the real citizens involved are worse for them than they were before -- while creating yet another military authoritarian klepto regime that enriches vastly a very small group, that then stays in power for decades upon decades, while the average person gets more and more desperately poor.  Which then fosters ever more persecution of other minorities from skin color to religious background, as well as organized gang violence and drug cartels preying on both the state's people and people elsewhere.

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

On 5/4/2019 at 5:37 PM, sologdin said:

Scott’s question is whether “whataboutisms” are always fallacies

doubtful.  he asked if a particular fallacy is ever a valid attack on an argument.  fallacies are by definition invalid.

y'all are changing the debate by asking questions about motive or priority in the making of an argument; those are legitimate discussions in themselves, but they are non-responsive to arguments to which they are tangential; if they are the only attempt to respond to an argument, then they are a concession of that argument.  these strike me as fox news evasions, to be candid: don't worry about the argument; just challenge the arguer's motives.  it is a classic irrationalism--but obviously effective in making a distraction.

 

On 5/4/2019 at 11:15 PM, sologdin said:

FFS it is not a tu quoque fallacy to criticize another state's policy--unless that criticism is intended as a defense in a colloquy that proceeds specifically upon accusations against one's own state.

the easy answer is that we'll hang their fascists from lampposts after we hang our own.  all fair, see? all this worry about a hypocrisy gap is just an inability to stay on target--michael bolton we're really gonna need you to focus up and never mind the aristotelian distraction of the ethos.

 

 

On 5/5/2019 at 10:17 AM, sologdin said:

ha did you just whatabout my argument with a strawperson about strawperson fallacies?  nice! i suppose it might be said i whatabouted the thread by deploying relative privation above with the hitler reference.

OMG, I think I love you, just a little bit, for all of this.

But honestly, every one of you who has said "but not whataboutism" has basically just tried to reframe the question to prove your point.  Lovely rhetorical trick.  Sometimes it fools opposing counsel, but I've found I can't always assume they are hungover or otherwise distracted (it is mostly effective on Friday mornings).  Experience has made me tediously aware of the need to have actual support for (rather than shiny objects to reflect) my position in non-internet arguments.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 5/4/2019 at 10:44 PM, The Marquis de Leech said:

Why do people focus on whataboutism so much when the people doing the accusing are likely guilty of it too?

Why do people accuse others of engaging in identity politics when literally damn near everyone traffics in some form of identity politics?

[The Marquis de Leech]

That said, if we allow whataboutery, it's only a matter of time before we allow the slippery slope fallacy too.

[HexMachina]

On 5/8/2019 at 3:28 AM, The Marquis de Leech said:

That said, if we allow whataboutery, it's only a matter of time before we allow the slippery slope fallacy too.

It took me far too long to see the joke in this