What About This? What About That?
What About This? What About That?
A sure-fire way to derail any conversation
Issue No. 18
Ever been in a civil conversation with someone and then you notice it begin to rapidly unravel? Many times, conversations go off the rails because of a little thing called whataboutism—answering a charge with another charge. Instead of engaging with the issue at hand, a person will point to some other issue and say,
But what about that thing?
To which the other person replies,
Well, if you’re going to bring that up, how about this other thing?
To which the first person responds,
Oh we’re going there are we, then how about this other thing over here?
And so on, and on, and on.
It’s effective in public discourse because it deflects the audience’s attention away from the original issue. Sometimes to another issue, and sometimes to a perceived flaw in the person’s character—how can you say such and such when you yourself are so and so.
It becomes even more effective when the other person falls for the gambit and starts responding to the deflection. The discussion is lost at that point. And while the ensuing theatrics and rhetorical jabs might be entertaining, they bring us no closer to learning anything new.
You might see the same thing in interviews or on panel shows where someone is being taken to task over something. They won’t want to answer a question, so they’ll resort to bringing up irrelevant things. There’s a limited amount of time on these shows, and so usually there’ll be some prodding and then the host or interviewer moves on.
You might see it in public announcements or in political spin. For instance, the following excerpt appears in a 1986 piece on the Chernobyl accident,
The terse Soviet announcement of the Chernobyl accident was followed by a Tass dispatch noting that there had been many mishaps in the United States, ranging from Three Mile Island outside Harrisburg, Pa., to the Ginna plant near Rochester. Tass said an American antinuclear group registered 2,300 accidents, breakdowns and other faults in 1979.1
We learn from that announcement that accidents happen, generally, but not why that specific one happened.
I was curious about the word’s origins since it sounds a bit goofy. The first use of the word “whatabout” in recent times was in 1974, in a letter penned by a history teacher to The Irish Times. A letter in which a Mr. Sean O’Conaill comments on the tendency of defenders of the IRA to point to the immorality of the other side. “The Whatabouts” he calls them.2
The next oldest reference dates back to 1671, with the earliest known use of the Latin term tu-quoque, meaning you too, in a work by the poet and playwright Thomas Shadwell.3 Tu-quoque is a logical fallacy that’s sometimes referred to as the appeal to hypocrisy, and models the same sort of pattern as whataboutism—one person says, “Why are you avoiding the question?” to which the other person responds, “You avoid questions all the time.”
An even older reference is from 380 B.C. I wouldn’t have known of it were it not for an article4 that took liberties with a passage from a lengthy dialogue between Socrates and Callicles.5 (Callicles comes across as a bit whiny in several parts.6)
SOCRATES: You are breaking the original agreement, Callicles, and will no longer be a satisfactory companion in the search after truth, if you say what is contrary to your real opinion.
CALLICLES: Why, that is what you are doing too, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then we are both doing wrong. Still, my dear friend, I would ask you to consider whether pleasure, from whatever source derived, is the good; for, if this be true, then the disagreeable consequences which have been darkly intimated must follow, and many others.
The term has been gaining traction over the past decade, hitting its peak popularity in 2020 in the US and in 2022 worldwide.
Remember
The best advice to oneself is to always separate the idea from the person, and to have the patience to discuss issues one at a time rather than jumbling them all together. Just because we’re discussing something now doesn’t mean that other thing, impertinent though it may be to this current discussion, isn’t as important. But we’ll get to it in time.
Keep the pattern in mind as the year unfolds and as you look back on events that have already unfolded. It’s truly astounding how much it crops up in our discourse. This month’s episode of Goat & Bear covers whataboutisms and the guilt by association fallacy. We’ll cover the guilt by association fallacy next time.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
—Kahlil Gibran (Soap and Foam)
Until next time,
—Ali
P.S. Interested in sponsoring an issue?
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35272
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/in-a-word-whataboutism-1.3129364
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/tu-quoque_n
https://theconversation.com/whataboutism-what-it-is-and-why-its-such-a-popular-tactic-in-arguments-182911
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1672/1672-h/1672-h.htm
CALLICLES: I wish I knew, Socrates, what your quibbling means.
SOCRATES: You know, Callicles, but you affect not to know.
CALLICLES: Well, get on, and don’t keep fooling: then you will know what a wiseacre you are in your admonition of me.
SOCRATES: Does not a man cease from his thirst and from his pleasure in drinking at the same time?
CALLICLES: I do not understand what you are saying.
GORGIAS: Nay, Callicles, answer, if only for our sakes;—we should like to hear the argument out.
CALLICLES: Yes, Gorgias, but I must complain of the habitual trifling of Socrates; he is always arguing about little and unworthy questions.
GORGIAS: What matter? Your reputation, Callicles, is not at stake. Let Socrates argue in his own fashion.
CALLICLES: Well, then, Socrates, you shall ask these little peddling questions, since Gorgias wishes to have them.
This is true in relationships too! —
It bothered me when you took my car without asking.
What about the time you used my razor? You know it dulls the blade.
We’re not t talking about your razor. We’re talking about my car. We can talk about your razor later….
(Goofy argument but you get the gist.)