Name: What is whataboutery all about? | A-Z of ISMs Episode 23 - BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2020-05-19T01:05:55.000Z
Duration: 2 min 14 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Whataboutism – also known as whataboutery –

is a way of criticising and, in some people's minds,

defeating an opponent by accusing them of hypocrisy.

As a political tactic, it was employed by the Nazis in the 1930s.

When Nazi Germany was censured for annexing territories in Europe,

Germany was only doing what countries like Britain and France

had been doing for centuries in Africa and Asia.

The practice was continued by the Soviet Union in the 1950s

Challenged on the murder of Soviet citizens by the state,

Soviet officials countered by saying that black people were being lynched

The term whataboutery was also used in the 1970s in Northern Ireland,

when Republicans and Loyalists pointed to their own sufferings

as a justification for supporting violent action.

but ignore the fact they're based on an invalid argument -

Whataboutism is not a useful or logical form of debate,

because it relies on the idea that two wrongs make a right.

And while there is a lot of support for this notion –

If I steal your car, you should tell the police.

Stealing my car is not an appropriate response.

The Nazis didn't invade Poland as a protest against British imperialism.

The Soviets didn't murder their own people

You didn't steal my car because I stole his car. And so on.

In the last few years, whataboutism has resurfaced,

partly because it's easier to point fingers away from yourself

partly because the internet is not always a place

and partly because there's always room for one more idiot

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