Zimmer also notes that the variant whataboutism was used in the same context in a 1993 book by Tony Parker. We have a bellyfull of Whataboutery in these killing days and the one clear fact to emerge is that people, Orange and Green, are dying as a result of it." Zimmer says the term gained wide currency in commentary about the conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Three days later, an opinion column by John Healy in the same paper entitled "Enter the cultural British Army" picked up the theme by using the term whataboutery: "As a correspondent noted in a recent letter to this paper, we are very big on Whatabout Morality, matching one historic injustice with another justified injustice. Sean O'Conaill, "Letter to Editor", The Irish Times, What about Papal sanction for the Norman invasion condemnation of the Fenians by Moriarty Parnell?” Neither is the Church immune: “The Catholic Church has never supported the national cause. Every call to stop is answered in the same way: “What about the Treaty of Limerick the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 Lenadoon?”. with an argument to prove the greater immorality of the “enemy”, and therefore the justice of the Provisionals’ cause: “What about Bloody Sunday, internment, torture, force-feeding, army intimidation?”. These are the people who answer every condemnation of the Provisional I.R.A. I would not suggest such a thing were it not for the Whatabouts.
Zimmer cites a 1974 letter by history teacher Sean O'Conaill which was published in The Irish Times where he complained about "the Whatabouts," people who defended the IRA by pointing out supposed wrongdoings of their enemy: OriginsĪccording to lexicographer Ben Zimmer, the term originated in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1970s. The term whataboutism is a portmanteau of what and about, is synonymous with whataboutery, and means to twist criticism back on the initial critic. 4.4 Usage in the Soviet Union and Russia.Ĭommon phrases of whataboutism, besides the typical "And what about.?" are the proverbs "He who sits in glass houses should not throw stones", "When you point a finger at others, three fingers point back at yourself", "You see the mote in another's eye, you do not see the beam in your own", and "Sweep in front of your own door." Related manipulation and propaganda techniques in the sense of rhetorical evasion of the topic are the change of topic and false balance ( bothsidesism). The deviation from them can then be branded as whataboutism. agenda setting, framing, framing effect, priming, cherry picking). Īccusing an interlocutor of whataboutism can also in itself be manipulative and serve the motive of discrediting, as critical talking points can be used selectively and purposefully even as the starting point of the conversation. (A: "Long-term unemployment often means poverty in Germany." B: "And what about the starving in Africa and Asia?"). Whataboutism can also be used to relativize criticism of one's own viewpoints or behaviors. Common accusations include double standards, and hypocrisy. The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism, the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified. The communication intent here is often to distract from the content of a topic ( red herring). From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the Tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the Ad-hominem argument. Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation.