Ad Heminem

I was talking to a buddy about Russian election interference in our country and the cancellation of our elections. My main disagreement was even if Russia interfered and tried to fool the people into voting for a specific person we should still honor the elections as it is the choice of the people.

After all, every country interferes in elections in one way or another, and fooling people into voting for you then fucking them over is basically what any politician does anyway. But that’s besides the point.

I wanted to talk about how Russia interfered in other elections. I was immediately shut down as this was “whataboutism”, because my argument began with the words “what about”.

So, what is whataboutism? Is it just using specific words? If you rearrange your phrase to not use them does it stop being whataboutism?

It really irks me when people use words without them having a personal definition for the word. “Read the dictionary, that’s the definition I mean”. If you don’t have a concept of what the word means how do you even use it? You’re just saying random words at that point.

When you say “what about” you are just comparing to another situation. This is not what whataboutism is about. You can immediately deeply understand whataboutism through these words: what about the starving children in Africa?

So, Titor, WHAT is whataboutism?

I don’t know what the dictionary says, but to me whataboutism is the logical fallacy of detracting from the topic entirely by focusing on another topic, generally with some accusatory intent to attack character or anything but the argument itself. When you bring up the starving children in Africa, you’re implying that the other party does not in fact care about starving children in Africa and that their argument in itself should not be brought until the other issue is solved.

In contrast, when you use a comparative situation to discuss the topic at hand it is not whataboutism, such as how Russia(and other countries really) interfered in other elections to try and see how they would interfere in ours.

I do agree with the intent, people who argue in bad faith should not be entertained at all, but blindly assuming bad faith without listening to what someone has to say is in itself bad faith.

Does it matter? No lol it’s just some random bullshit we were talking about. This was weeks ago but I just remembered it tonight and wanted to post about it. Next time someone talks to me about whataboutism, I can just send them here.

Logical fallacies

Lots of people just blurt out logical fallacy names to sound smart and to “win arguments”, but it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just call out your special move name and have it apply.

Just properly respond to the argument. Explain why the argument is bad, why the starving children in africa don’t matter for the sake of the conversation, how this situation is different.

If you even care about these random latin words, you probably like debating so at least do it in good faith. If the other person is arguing in bad faith you can always just stop