I hate how liberals can create a meaningless label like whataboutism and then repeat it endlessly until it becomes an argument for them. Most of these labels were created because they are too lazy or ignorant to counter argument. Their debate capabilities rival that of a child.
Pretty much, liberals never engage an argument in good faith. Their goal is always to shut down discussion whenever they see a point of view that's not sanctioned by the CIA. It's rather amusing how the same people who bemoan lack of freedom of speech in evil authoritarian regimes like China are actively censoring any dissenting opinions that run contrary to the state propaganda of their own regime. Zero self awareness there.
There are some paranoid levels of thinking in some of that stuff. Like when a person thinks someone is a "x foreign country spy" because they disagree. It's possible for people to break out of that mode of thinking, but when they are in that mode, it's next to impossible to get through because everything you say that is in disagreement is "because you are trying to deceive them."
Liberals claiming someone is doing whataboutism seems like a component of this thinking, with a belief that the one doing the "whataboutism" is attempting to deceive. But although it's (probably? I haven't analyzed it in enough depth to say with certainty) possible for someone to deceive in that way, it's also possible to compare two things for a variety of rhetorical purposes that have nothing to do with dishonesty. Such as pointing out the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world if someone tries to say x foreign country is "authoritarian" in contrast to the US being "free"; that's not whataboutism, it's a factual point that undermines the narrative of the US having some kind of greater moral standing from which it can properly judge other countries.
If anything, I would say imperialists, liberals, tend to be more engaged in actual whataboutism, even if unconsciously. Like if you try to point out something fundamentally wrong with the US, claiming that alternatives are way worse. Which in that regard also seems to be in bed with doomerism (or more formally maybe, capitalist realism).
Oh yeah I've noticed that as well, it's absolutely inconceivable for these people that somebody could genuinely disagree with them. If you have a contrary opinion that must be because you have some secret agenda. It's kind of funny to unpack to be honest because what are they even saying there. When they say you're shilling for the see see pee or whatever, they're still acknowledging that you ultimately prefer that system. Yet, according to them, your view should be dismissed because anything that's not western liberalism is somehow evil.
The whole whataboutism thing is fundamentally a logical fallacy. It's basically a rhetorical device to create a double moral standard for yourself and your adversaries. Why should others be held to a higher standard than one holds themselves, it doesn't make any sense.
I think when they say people "shill for the ccp" what they mean is "you accept payment from this evil bad country in order to lie for them."
It's a moral statement. It both dismisses the argument from the "ccp shill" while also reinforcing the idea that the west alone cares about morality at all. It is such a common argument because it doesn't just allow someone to ignore their opponent, but also soothes them, insisting that they are on the "right side of history" and the only people who disagree with them are cartoonishly evil, doing things they know are wrong just for the money.
Absolutely, it's the highest stage of cope where they insist that nobody could possibly genuinely believe what you're saying, so you're just reading a script because you're paid to do so.
I think it goes back to things we've talked about before, with libs insisting that those "other countries" are worse in every way. Their worldview involves following a script, so tankies must really follow a script, extra, extra hard.
(Also, damn you are popular today, you keep getting a ton of likes on everything. I'll hit refresh and a comment will go from 5 or so to over 20.)
Completely agree, and yeah dunno what's with so many upvotes today. Don't think I've said anything profound. :)
I think it's because the programming cuts off the ability to see that the programming isn't actual education nor does it encourage thought, but quite the opposite. So if someone disagrees it's because they have different programming and that is the only explanation. It's all brainless knee-jerk reaction.
Oh yeah I agree, it comes down to thermodynamics in the end. We all hold a graph of ideas in our heads, and no single fact exists in a vacuum. So, when we're presented with a new idea that doesn't fit with the existing graph, we either have to rebuild the whole graph of concepts that are associated with it, or just discard the conflicting idea. Unless there's a good reason to spend the energy doing the hard task the brain goes with the easy solution of just ignoring the information that doesn't fit what we already believe.
This is why change tends to only happen when material conditions start collapsing, because that's the point where it's too costly for people to continue ignoring alternate ideas. They're forced to recognize that their world model is divergent from their actual experience, and need recalibrating.
That's a logical fallacy not a meaningless label. Do you know what a straw man argument is? Whataboutism is like that, it's a debate tactic people use in arguments. It's called a fallacy because it doesn't actually settle arguments but instead uses poor logic to make it appear that the person using it is winning.
To use one of the rights favorite whatabouts.
Trump is a traitor. Saying well what about Hunter Biden doesn't make Trump less of a traitor, but instead tries to derail the argument and make it about Hunter Biden.
Whataboutism
A correct example would be to say that Both Trump and Hunter Biden should be held to the same standard. What people point out when liberals screech whataboutism is that the west holds itself to a different standard than its adversaries. The same way a legal system has to apply law in a consistent fashion, countries must be held to the same standard as well. If people in western countries are outraged by other countries doing the same thing the west does, then they should fix their own countries first before pointing fingers at others. It's really that simple.
Exposing hypocrisy is not a logical fallacy. A person that engages in debate in good faith will not use hypocritical statements, at least not intentionally. Hypocrisy must always be pointed out to construct a serious and scientific understanding of reality.
There's a difference between exposing hypocrisy and trying to change the subject to derail a conversation.
Trump can be a traitor and Hunter Biden a coke head, both of these things can be true. Bringing up Hunter's coke problem every fucking time Trump's crimes get mentioned is whataboutism.
It is a form of intellectual dishonesty, like a strawman. i.e. a logical fallacy.
Trump can be a traitor and Hunter Biden a coke head, both of these things can be true. Bringing up Hunter’s coke problem every fucking time Trump’s crimes get mentioned is whataboutism.
I understand that this is just an example you made to explain the concept, but the things people here say that are called whattaboutisms rarely fit your description. Most often, you'll have someone bring up involvement of a western country (usually burgerland) in causing a problem that is being pinned on the designated bad country of the week. This isn't an attempt to derail the conversation: this is an attempt to get to the root of the issue.
And relying on calling out fallacies to shut down a point is just the fallacist's fallacy in the flesh; so do any of you ever have an actual point to make? Or are you just another bad-faith hypocrite? Because that sounds a lot like "every time we make up an atrocity only to get called out for an actual atrocity we committed, we're gonna shriek 'whataboutism'"; and that's all the intellectual honesty of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
If the point someone is making is a fallacy then they are not addressing the original point and dodging an honest debate.
And holy shit the amount of projection in this thread!
We don't agree with this person, which is clearly a logical fallacy, they just haven't figured out which one yet.
nah, was clear after I posted I wandered into a right wing echo chamber so I will bow out and let you all keep circle jerking over my downvotes.
There's a point your making, but even you fail to understand it. A proper logic fallacy would be to apply a moral approach to a topic where it is originally supposed to realist/technical approach. An example of this would be the discussion of the ukraine war, by stating that ukraine cannot and will never win is a realist approach to a major geopolitical situation, and the continuing the war is only to the detriment of ukranian, and russian lives to a war which had been decided since day 1. The true 'whataboutism' is when liberals apply a moral aspect and deviate the conversation by stating "ukraine experiences (uninformative and unbacked knowledge) genocide by the russians" or "ukraine is fighting for their life wouldn't you do the same?" That's whataboutism, as its shifting the tone of the conversation from an actual depiction of ukraine, to the enlightened image ukraine has of fighting barbaric invaders who want to destroy their culture (P.S. again bullshit since russia only wants the russian-speaking areas which have been trying to secede only for the ukranian army to continue to discriminate and maim them). There's no logic backing them here, every analysis, every professional paper, and every person with a thinking brain can properly decipher that ukraine can never win, even the liberals who know this try to deviate from the conservation into a moral issue, for them its to successfully gear the conversation into good vs evil one, so that they can deny the logic but still resemble a well-reasoned argument. That's logic fallacy.
I appreciated the well thought out response but your still painting the same tired picture. My sides right and yours wrong. Look at how you talk about the true whatabotism being a thing liberals do instead of it being a logical mistake all humans can make.
Both sides do it. When liberals bring it up it's because they're tired of Fox Entertainment distracting from very real crimes Trump committed. If Hunter is a criminal, lock him up too.
Anyway, you all keep enjoying your projections and circle jerks. I'm out for real this time because you're the first honest response I have had and frankly the rest of you are to caught in your own echo chamber to hear anything but GOP propaganda.
Days late to this but the point I was making a point from our perspective, that's why I talked about the russian-ukraine war. And frankly a lot of people (including me) is really tired of liberals using 'whataboutism' or 'logic fallacy' to incorrectly shut down a conversation. I agree communists can incorrectly post information regarding certain topics, however thats far from even a minority. But liberals do base their entire personality, and ideology on denying logic.
The other point why people bring hunter biden is that he's clearly done stuff that a poor, or minority person would be locked up for decades. Yet he escapes crime simply because he's born into a wealthy family, and is a president's son. He's literally a fortunate son. People seem to forgotten there's evidence of him snorting cocaine, and having sex with prostitutes, all illegal under US law, and people have died from these laws, which biden has voted in, and put into place. We're also tired of democrats support and funding fascists, and then turning around to us, the majority, to bail out their mistake, they literally count on our better judgement, and morals to bail out their shitty, money-grabbing ones. This is not how a democracy works.
Shame, at least do think about this information for a while, and reflect on why we think this way. Or you can ignore, either way.
I hear you.
I think the term whatsboutism got coined because of how Fox Entertainment uses it. Mention Trump and then say something like well what about Hunter. It's a way to distract and spread propaganda.
Liberals do it too.
I don't identify as liberal or conservative. I grew up working class and support strong unions. Which neither the GOP or Democrats do. They're both the party of the rich, as you eluded to in your post.
One wants total power and the other wants to keep the status quo with the corporate elite. I want to seize the means of production and hold all of these assholes accountable.
Musk and Bezos, Trump and Hunter too.
For the liberals who downvoted, here are some high IQ jokes.
Why is the USA more authoritarian than China? Because in the USA, you have to pay for freedom and everybody is poor!
Why doesn't Tibet need to be freed twice? Because China already did it once and they're not going to do it again!
Posted on here some time back about how I had this argument with this one "Marxist" kid who probably believes all the stuff on here, he literally said Lenin (probably the least "authoritarian" Soviet leader minus Gorbachev) was an authoritarian, and that the Soviets (along with literally every other ruling/former ruling communist party since they were just like them) were basically Nazis who lied about being socialist to get power, to the point where he even called me a Nazi, along with unironically saying the horseshoe theory was true because "MLs are far-right."
It annoys me whenever liberals try to pretend that they are leftists when they actively antagonize actual leftists. COINTELPRO and its consequences have been a disaster for the western left.
Marxism-Leninism is an ideology that is followed by a minimum of one hundred million people (add up all the members of the ruling communist parties worldwide to see how I got that number), and that doesn't even count all the sympathizers and non-party members which is probably a billion or two. Yet apparently every single one of them is just lying about being socialist just so they can seize power and be authoritarians. The Nazis actively hated Marxism and stated that they were trying to take socialism from the socialists, while Marxist-Leninists quoted Marx and Engels all the time in their writings and talked about how they would achieve a socialist society.
The idea that Marxist-Leninists are all just lying authoritarians is something I find utterly ridiculous and laughable. You have to think outside of reality in order to believe that claim.
I like to tell people like this to read Blackshirts and Reds by Parenti. I forget in what detail atm, but he specifically goes over how Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy co-opted working class energy, while being opposed to working class power in actuality. In contrast with the Soviet Union, which had its issues, but was genuinely by/for the working class.
Like the thing these kind of people are talking about is sort of real?... but it's a rightist thing, it's not something Lenin did or Stalin did or Mao did. There are shades of that happening now in the US, the rightists who claim to be ML or communist, but are also "patriots" (claiming there's nothing wrong with being patriotic for a genocidal settler state developed into a global capitalist empire).
Also, I would say the use of the word "authoritarian" generally betrays how lacking a person's political education has been and how desperately they need some grounding in history+theory from non-imperialist sources. Idk the origin of "authoritarian" as a term, but in practice, it gets used as a propaganda buzzword to contrast, claiming that "democracy for the rich" systems are "freedom" and other stuff is "authoritarian." Meanwhile, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Under what rock the freedom is hiding, I don't know. People get told such spooky ghost story narratives about how "authoritarian" those "non freedom" countries are, while ignoring what's in front of them: the "rights" written on a constitution that is as reliable as you are rich and that's about as far as it goes.
No "West Taiwan?" No Tiananmen? No accusations for accusations of being a bot? Smdh this bingo lacks content.
Ah but you see, it's the Chinese the ones who pay people to post opinions favourable to them. The Russians, on the other side, program robots to post opinions favourable to them. It's a very important difference.
Missing "totalitarian," "red fash," something or other about Tibet, and of course no food holodomor
I think so? I've been blind before but I thought I remembered "agenda" being on there too.
Forgot they like that number, that's okay we can just add another zero to it. The number goes up every year anyways.
My issue was the "gorillion", not the 20. There are other options like, idk, "bazillion" that work just as well, or just a nice simple "trillion" for the absurdity.
