whataboutism

See also: Whataboutism

English

Etymology

From what about +‎ -ism.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wət.əˈbaʊt.ɪzəm/
• IPA^(key): [wə.ɾəˈbaʊ.ɾɪzm̩]

Noun

whataboutism (countable and uncountable, plural whataboutisms)

1. A logical fallacy where criticisms are deflected by raising corresponding criticisms of the opposite side.

   Synonyms: tu quoque, whataboutery

   • 1994, Joe Austin, “The obdurate and the obstinate”, in Tony Parker, editors, May the Lord in His Mercy be Kind to Belfast, Henry Holt & Co, →ISBN, page 136:

     And I'd no time at all for 'What aboutism' - you know, people who said 'Yes, but what about what's been done to us? ... That had nothing to do with it, and if you got into it you were defending the indefensible.

   • 2008 January 31, Edward Lucas, “Whataboutism - Come again, Comrade?”, in The Economist‎^[1]:

     Soviet propagandists during the cold war were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed 'whataboutism'.

   • 2008 December 11, Staff writer, “The West is in danger of losing its moral authority”, in European Voice‎^[2], retrieved 3 July 2017:

     'Whataboutism' was a favourite tactic of Soviet propagandists during the old Cold War. Any criticism of the Soviet Union’s internal aggression or external repression was met with a 'what about?' some crime of the West, from slavery to the Monroe doctrine.

   • 2014 August 25, Robert Tracinski, “Crime: Understanding Ferguson: Fort Apache, Missouri”, in The Federalist‎^[3]:

     Back in the Cold War, we had a term for this: 'whataboutism.' Whenever anyone criticized the Soviets about the gulags, their mouthpieces would start a sentence with 'What about...' and go on to talk about racism and poverty and whatever bad thing they could think of that was happening in the United States.

   • 2016 July 24, Jill Dougherty, “Olympic doping ban unleashes fury in Moscow”, in CNN‎^[4]:

     There's another attitude ... that many Russians seem to share, what used to be called in the Soviet Union 'whataboutism,' in other words, 'who are you to call the kettle black?'

   • 2017, Andreas Umland, “The Ukrainian Government's Memory Institute Against the West”, in IndraStra Global‎^[5], volume 3, number 3, →ISSN, retrieved 4 July 2017, page 7:

     what was known during Soviet times, as 'whataboutism'

   • 2017 March 17, Danielle Kurtzleben, “Trump Embraces One Of Russia's Favorite Propaganda Tactics — Whataboutism”, in NPR‎^[6], retrieved 20 May 2017:

     This particular brand of changing the subject is called 'whataboutism' — a simple rhetorical tactic heavily used by the Soviet Union and, later, Russia.

Derived terms

• whataboutist

Translations

propaganda technique

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: please add this translation if you can

  Mandarin: 比爛主義／比烂主义 (bǐlànzhǔyì) (neologism, slang), 臭蟲論／臭虫论 (chòuchónglùn)

• Dutch: jij-bak (nl), whataboutism, whataboutisme (nl)
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: whataboutismi
• French: whataboutisme m, qu’en-est-ilisme (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Whataboutism (de) m
• Hungarian: viszonvádaskodás, figyelemelterelő visszakérdezés
• Indonesian: whataboutisme
• Italian: benaltrismo m
• Japanese: そっちこそどうなんだ主義
• Korean: 물타기 (multagi) (not fully equivalent)
• Latvian: please add this translation if you can
• Lithuanian: please add this translation if you can
• Persian: پس‌چه‌ایسم
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: вотэбаути́зм (ru) m (votɛbautízm), перево́д стре́лок (perevód strélok), какнасчёти́зм m (kaknasčotízm), (rare, neologism), приплета́ние (ru) n (pripletánije)
• Slovak: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: y tú más
• Swedish: whataboutism c (neologism)
• Ukrainian: якщодої́зм m (jakščodojízm)

See also

• bothsidesism
• whateverism

References

• Stevenson, Angus, editor (2010), “whataboutism”, in Oxford Dictionary of English: Third Edition‎^[7], Oxford University Press, →ISBN, retrieved 23 July 2017: “Origin - 1990s: from the way in which counter-accusations may take the form of questions introduced by 'What about —?'”
• “whataboutism”, in Oxford Living Dictionary (Oxford Dictionaries)‎^[8], Oxford University Press, 2017, archived from the original on 9 March 2017: “Origin - 1990s: from the way in which counter-accusations may take the form of questions introduced by ‘What about —?’.”