Whataboutary
Former American president Harry S. Truman once said, ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’ Sometimes, arguments are presented in such a manner that instead of proving a particular argument wrong, the trick is to confuse the audience so that the credibility of the original argument becomes suspect and weak. It is like a game between different arguments. Once you have weakened the opposite argument, you win despite having a weak argument.
Whataboutery is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. This is used extensively in the political discourses. Suppose the ruling party is attacked by the present opposition party about rising prices, increased crimes, unemployment etc., instead of defending the failure of the government, the spokesman of the party, asks counter questions like
- What about inflation when your government was in power?
- What about the crimes in the states ruled by your government (in past or present)?
- What about unemployment in your times?
The spokesman simply refuses to answer the question and defend the government, and instead put the opposition party members in a defensive position. By weakening the position of the opponent, the ruling party spokesman wins. The line of argument is like this.
- Person A commits a wrong and is questioned by Person B
- Person B has also committed a similar wrong in past
- Hence, person B has no right to question person A, and thus A’s wrongs are not wrong
Whataboutry fallacy had been in use for ages. For instance, when Jesus Christ was asked about the punishment to be given to the adulterous women, instead of stating whether or not the women should be punished for adultery, he questioned those who wanted to punish the women, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” There is no connection between the acts of the persons who sought punishment to the women and their own conduct. Yet, all the people withdraw since everyone had committed some sin at some point in their lives.
This strategy can be used to defend all types of wrongs committed by a person. For example, Hamas attacked Iseal on October 7, 2023, with 5000 missiles that killed almost 1200 Israeli citizens, and they also captured hundreds of Israeli citizens. In retaliation, Israel attacked Palestine and killed tens of thousands of people, most of them innocent citizens, including children and women, who had no link with the terrorist attack. When Israel’s action was criticised, their defence was, ‘What about the terrorist attack by Hamas?’. No doubt the attack by Hamas was wrong, an act of terrorism that killed innocent people. But can the action of Israel be justified in killing tens of thousands of people, which mainly includes innocent people?
Whataboutary is extensively used to justify communal riots, violation of human rights, fake encounters with criminals etc. Suppose a member of minority community A kills a member of majority community B for any reason. The murder is given a communal colour by the politicians which supports the retaliation by the majority community by giving them a free hand to kill the members of the minority community, which leads to the death of 10 members of the minority community. The minority community retaliates and kills some more people from the majority community. Now the majority community in reaction kills thousands of innocent people from minority communities. The mutual hatred leads to the consolidation of both communities, which helps the political party to come back to power with a thumping majority. However, whenever they are questioned about their complicity in riots by giving a free hand to the majority community, instead of defending their actions, they ask ‘What about the actions of the minority community?’ While two wrongs do not make something right, whataboutery is extensively used to justify any mischief.
Any policy can be justified using whataboutery. Some countries like India practice positive discrimination by reserving jobs in government based on caste, which often leads to the selection of a lower caste person (who may be quite well off financially now) with much lower marks due to caste while an upper caste person (who may be poor) is rejected due to caste. However, when the discrimination is questioned, instead of justifying the benefit to a rich lower caste person, the standard answer is ‘What about the thousands of years of discrimination practised in the past by upper caste people?’ No doubt that past discrimination was bad, but can it justify the present discrimination? Logically not, but this is found to be a good logic to justify discrimination.
Why Whataboutery Works
There are reasons for people to believe in whataboutery. The policies can’t be judged in isolation, as every policy has both positive and negative effects. When we ask for a frame of reference through wahtaboutary, it provides context and puts things into perspective through relativism. For example, crimes happen in every society, and their current progress can only be assessed relative to the past.
Dale Carnegie wrote in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” Asking questions from those who ask questions provides a holistic perspective. Hence, when there is a demand to make the rape laws more stringent against women, it is important to ask, “What about sexual harassment of men and false accusations of men?”
Politics has always been riddled with corruption and malpractices for ages. Niccolo Machiavelli aptly described, “Politics have no relation to morals.” Hence, it is futile to expect absolute morality from politicians, and their conduct should be judged only in relative terms.
However, when whataboutery is used to justify communal riots, violation of human rights, fake encounters, reservation, crime, rapes etc., it is unacceptable since two wrongs do not make it right. Every action should be independently evaluated for right and wrong. A criminal does not become innocent because the other person has also committed a crime.
While wahtaboutary may be a good tool to win arguments, it is important to avoid them in the interest of truth, which is the chief aim of critical thinking. Hence, a critical thinker must rely on empirical evidence instead of anecdotal evidence, like pointing out an individual case of crime. Moreover, just as Rome was not built in one day, crimes and corruption can’t be reduced in a short time. Hence, the crime rates, corruption, morality, etc., must be evaluated relative to the past, and if they are getting better, the government and officials need to be complemented for improving the overall performance rather than being hauled for not being able to control it completely. Instead of resorting to whataboutery, we must analyse the issues objectively and provide relative statistics to justify the performance.
