The most I’ve seen people say “whataboutism” has been in response to someone trying to deflect criticism by pointing out apparent hypocrisy, as in the aforementioned Soviet example (I used to argue with terminally online tankies a lot).
I.e.
(A): “The treatment of Uyghurs in China is appalling. You should condemn this.”
(B): “What about the U.S. treatment of Native Americans? Who are you to criticize?”
(A): “That’s whataboutism!”
The thing I find problematic with this “defence” is that both instances are ostensibly examples of clear wrongdoing, and pointing out that the second thing happened doesn’t make the first thing any less wrong. It also makes the assumption that (A) is okay with the second thing, when they haven’t voiced any actual opinion on it yet, and could very well be willing to condemn it just as much.
Your examples are somewhat different in the sense that rather than referring to actions that some loosely related third parties were responsible for, the actions in question are directly committed by (A) and (B) themselves. In that sense, (A) is being hypocritical and probably self-serving. At the same time I don’t think that absolves (B) of their actions.
My general sense whenever whataboutism rears its head is to straight up say “a pox on both your houses”, rather than trying to defend a side.
The most I’ve seen people say “whataboutism” has been in response to someone trying to deflect criticism by pointing out apparent hypocrisy, as in the aforementioned Soviet example (I used to argue with terminally online tankies a lot).
I.e.
(A): “The treatment of Uyghurs in China is appalling. You should condemn this.”
(B): “What about the U.S. treatment of Native Americans? Who are you to criticize?”
(A): “That’s whataboutism!”
The thing I find problematic with this “defence” is that both instances are ostensibly examples of clear wrongdoing, and pointing out that the second thing happened doesn’t make the first thing any less wrong. It also makes the assumption that (A) is okay with the second thing, when they haven’t voiced any actual opinion on it yet, and could very well be willing to condemn it just as much.
Your examples are somewhat different in the sense that rather than referring to actions that some loosely related third parties were responsible for, the actions in question are directly committed by (A) and (B) themselves. In that sense, (A) is being hypocritical and probably self-serving. At the same time I don’t think that absolves (B) of their actions.
My general sense whenever whataboutism rears its head is to straight up say “a pox on both your houses”, rather than trying to defend a side.