Broomstick wrote: ↑2019-10-14 09:28am
While the US has invented quite a bit of bad stuff over the centuries the US did not invent "whataboutism" - it's logical fallacy and an argument to justify misbehavior that goes back pretty much forever in history, it's nothing new in the world. In the old days it used to be call
tu quoque, which has cites as far back as the 1600's. For more about the history and origin of the term see
this wiki.
Now that you have been enlightened you may now resume your exchange of vitriol.
Your link literally contradicts your statement
"Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument,[1][2][3] which in the United States is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda."
You're talking about Tu Quoque, that's what has been around for centuries. Whataboutism is a variant invented specifically in the Cold War. Indeed, all of the sources mentioned in the article indicate that was it was invented in the 1960s or later.
The term Whataboutism stems from the conjunction of the two words what + about to twist criticism back on the initial critic.[7][8][36]
The Oxford Dictionary of English 2010 edition,[37] and Oxford Living Dictionaries entry on whataboutism states: "Origin - 1990s: from the way in which counter-accusations may take the form of questions introduced by 'What about —?'."[1] According to the lexicographer Ben Zimmer, the term whataboutism appeared "as early as 1993".[38] In contrast, Andreas Umland, a political scientist and historian of Russia and Ukraine, said the term was used during the Soviet Union period.[21] In 2012, Neil Buckley wrote in the Financial Times that the term was used by "Soviet-watchers".[27]
According to Oxford Dictionary of English, in British English whataboutism is synonymous with whataboutery,[37] which according to Zimmer has been used with a similar meaning since the period of The Troubles conflict in Northern Ireland.[38] In 1974, a letter written by Sean O'Conaill and published in The Irish Times referred to "the Whatabouts ... who answer every condemnation of the Provisional I.R.A. with an argument to prove the greater immorality of the 'enemy'" and an opinion column in the same paper picked up the theme using the term "whataboutery", which gained wide currency in commentary about the conflict.[38] Zimmer noted that the variant whataboutism was used in the same context in a 1993 book by Tony Parker.[38]
The Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the term back to the Cold War.[20] It references journalist Michael Bernard from The Age, who in 1978 wrote "the weaknesses of whataboutism—which dictates that no one must get away with an attack on the Kremlin's abuses without tossing a few bricks at South Africa, no one must indict the Cuban police State without castigating President Park, no one must mention Iraq, Libya or the PLO without having a bash at Israel".[20]
According to Russian journalist Konstantin von Eggert, the term originated in the 1960s as an ironic description of "the Soviet Union's efforts at countering Western criticism".[39] However, no examples of the term being applied to the Soviet Union exist prior to its usage in The Age in 1978.[40]
British journalist Edward Lucas used the word whataboutism in a blog post of 29 October 2007,[41] reporting as part of a diary about Russia which was printed in 2 November issue of The Economist.[42] "Whataboutism" was the title of an article in The Economist on 31 January 2008, where Lucas wrote: "Soviet propagandists during the cold war were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed 'whataboutism'".[7] Zimmer credited Lucas for popularizing the term in 2007–2008.[38] Ivan Tsvetkov, associate professor of International Relations in St Petersburg, dates the practice of whataboutism back to 1950 with the "lynching of blacks" argument, but he also credits Lucas for the recent popularity of the term.[43]
The same article also note that Swedes argue that Whataboutism is consistently used hypocritically:
"Christian Christensen, Professor of Journalism in Stockholm, argues that the accusation of whataboutism is itself a form of tu quoque fallacy, as it dismisses criticisms of one's own behavior to focus instead on the actions of another, thus creating a double standard. Those who use whataboutism are not necessarily engaging in an empty or cynical deflection of responsibility: whataboutism can be a useful tool to expose contradictions, double standards, and hypocrisy"
So again, let's not pretend this is not insecure Americans covering their ears whenever the world points out that their pronouncements about "freedom" and "democracy" are not exactly credible when they force African-Americans to ride in the back of the bus, and that their response to this criticism is to bury their heads in the sand and scream "whataboutism, I win!"
The fact that it works is why Trump still uses it, and why America is a police state for African-Americans.
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