What about Stalin? No, stick to the point about Hitler
by Neil McCrae, TCW:
Pussy hats galore! In their sceptical view of the mass demonstrations after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the likes of Piers Morgan and Sarah Vine suggested that the millions of female protestors across the Western world should reconsider their priorities: what about Saudi Arabia? Down with these apologists, shrieked the feminists, for using such diversionary tactics.
According to an online dictionary (en.oxforddictionaries.com), whataboutery is ‘the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue’. Joel Patterson, on Freedomain Radio, sees it as a tendency of the Left: ‘You bring up a criticism of something, like say Islamic terrorism, and instead of having your criticism evaluated, accepted or rebutted, someone completely bypasses everything that you had just said with a ‘what about’ statement’. An example from that side of the ideological divide occurs whenever Muslim homophobia is mentioned. ‘But what about the Bible?’
Such whataboutery presents a false equivalence. Just as critics of Western foreign policy imply that ISIS is no more barbaric than the USAF, a fundamentalist creed that throws gay men off tall buildings in the name of its prophet is no worse in principle than opposition to same-sex marriage. This is deflection, and it can be irritatingly obstructive.
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