We are all guilty of whataboutism. It happens so frequently that it’s no exaggeration to say it is almost encoded in our genome — no less than our animal instincts. From a young age, siblings use it to avoid chores or punishment. “Why do I have to wash the dishes today? You didn’t help set the plates last night.” Whataboutism is in essence a simple and effective way to deflect criticism by changing the focus to the wrongs of others. Similar to the logical fallacy “tu quoque”, it only masquerades to follow logical reasoning. Whataboutism claims that it’s immoral to even question one’s points by deflecting the burden toward a misdoing that’s usually unrelated to the topic at hand. 

The main problem with whataboutism is that it fuels hypocrisy to the point where it’s hard to communicate and have the necessary conversations on the topics that actually matter.  It assigns equal moral value to seemingly all actions, without giving regard to the context. Since human beings are not perfect, it essentially implies that there is no such thing as proper criticism. It’s necessary to mention that exposing a double standard does not equate with whataboutism. Whataboutism treats two wrongs as if they cancel each other out, leaving no room for further discussion. It isn’t equivalent to exposing a double standard, that is when people are weighed on a different scale for the same thing. Nonetheless, whataboutism and double standard have become key features of modern debating, especially in the political arena.

Politicians are masters of deflecting hard questions thrown at them. So it’s no wonder that whataboutism, at least as it is claimed by mainstream media, made its debut in modern politics in the Cold War era. Politicians since have used whataboutism as a tool to distract, divide, and conquer their constituents. Whenever they are confronted with a serious issue, they deflect or raise another problem — not because they want citizens to live by their moral values but rather to confuse the public’s moral compass so that they won’t stand up at all. Populist leaders especially love this fairly elementary technique as it absolves them from being too detailed on political ideologies and minimizes potential political risks. Pointing fingers at an opposing group is a sure way to unify a following.

Some of the whataboutism in world politics right now could be said to be “understandable”, for lack of a better word. No individual, let alone a group of people or an entire nation, likes to be told that they are wrong, especially when the entity speaking is guilty of said actions themselves. So, in a world where nations fight to become a global superpower, it is no surprise that no nation wants to take blame for virtually anything. And quite frankly, it’s hard to blame some world leaders for their use of whataboutism considering the amount of hypocritical politics running the show. No sane person is expected to take North Korea seriously if they accuse a nation of undemocratic elections, right? Well, there’s more to it.

The thing is that calling out an argument of whataboutism, logically speaking, could be a form of the “tu quoque” fallacy itself. It’s relatively easy to avoid a tough question by calling out the whataboutism in it, and not actually addressing it. And this “reverse whataboutism” is a sure way to push things under the rug and dismiss the tough questions. This, combined with its simplicity and effectiveness, makes it unavoidable in the political realm. And with the way it’s spreading, we can only hope that it doesn’t dominate popular discourse.