What About Whataboutism?

Listen to my audio narration of this essay in the embedded player above!

---

Spend any time either observing or participating in debates related to China and you’re sure almost immediately to see both instances of and accusations of “whataboutism.” Party A proffers some criticism of a Chinese violation of human rights — let’s just really stretch our imaginations here and say hypothetically that he’s an American — and he’s immediately answered by a Chinese person who points to a fault in the U.S. he believes to be similar. The implication is, of course, that the original criticism was hypocritical. The individual offering the criticism inevitably alleges whataboutism, dismissing the defense as mere tu quoque, the old “appeal to hypocrisy” fallacy. The defense, after all, has not addressed the substance of the allegation but has instead pointed at something else. 

I’m sure we can agree that to label a response as whataboutism is to impute illegitimacy to it, to take it out at the knees. There’s no doubt that there are many instances in which the reflexive pointing out of hypocrisy or the presence of a double standard in response to criticism is unambiguously done in bad faith — to shut down debate and dismiss criticism through distraction. Such instances can and should be fairly labeled whataboutism. 

But is flagging an instance of hypocrisy necessarily committing a foul? Of course not. We’ve probably all seen the allegation of whataboutism used in bad faith, too, and for precisely the same ends: it’s also used to shut down debate, and also used to dismiss or deflect criticism.