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Thread: About “Whataboutism”

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    About “Whataboutism”

    About “Whataboutism” or, simply, no, it's hypocrisy.

    Remember, though, that postmoderns do not adhere to the logical law of non-contradiction.

    Many things are complicated—but not everything. If you condemned the Antifa/Black Lives Matter violence that took place around the country in 2020, as all conservatives did, then you must condemn the Trumpist riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. Period.

    Suppose, however, you spent last summer applauding the riots, or dissembling about them, or dismissing them. In that case, to deplore last week’s violence credibly is not so simple. If you demand that your political adversaries adhere to a principle, but exempt people whose cause you endorse from having to comply, then that preference you enjoy boasting about is not really a principle. It is not a standard of conduct applicable to all, in other words, but just another rhetorical device used for political combat.

    ...The whataboutism indictments mean that we, who wield this cultural power, can deliver crazy and dangerous pronouncements during one historical circumstance, and then a few months later use that power to decree that the earlier pronouncements are irrelevant to whatever points we’re making today. Cultural power means never having to say you’re sorry and never having to feel you’re constrained. Go ahead: take outrageous positions or issue preposterous formulations today, confident that if they make you or us look bad in the future, we, the culturally powerful, will join together to manufacture a consensus that even alluding to those embarrassments is now impermissible. It will be as if they never happened. Kant’s categorical imperative about committing or defending only those actions you would uphold as universal principles is ground down to a speed bump. Cultural power demolishes universality with situational assertions of relativity: That was then; this is now. If some annoying troll complains about our inconsistency or hypocrisy, we’ll respond with accusations of whataboutism, an update of the credo voiced by Eric Stratton in Animal House: You f---ed up. You took us seriously....
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    About “Whataboutism” or, simply, no, it's hypocrisy.

    Remember, though, that postmoderns do not adhere to the logical law of non-contradiction.
    I prefer to call it, WTF-ism
    Cutesy Time is OVER

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    The left’s bare-faced hypocrisy

    What a difference a week makes. On Wednesday, we discovered that House Democrats actually support police. They are against mob violence. They believe in law and order. They believe in harsh punishment for rule breakers. They believe in accountability.

    They care deeply about civility. They believe words matter. They abhor intemperate rhetoric. They are against coarse language. Fancy that.

    They believe in a peaceful transition of power, at least this time, as opposed to 2016. They believe in the Electoral College. They believe in the legitimacy of the people’s vote.

    They believe in walls, at least when it comes to protecting their own place of work. They even believe in bringing in the National Guard to quell civil unrest, at least when it comes to preserving their own peace.

    They believe in guns, at least when their own safety is at risk.

    They revere American history and institutional norms. They honor the Founding Fathers. Hah!

    This is what we learned while watching the Democrats in the House impeach President Trump for the second pointless time in 13 months.

    We learned that they, almost to a man and a woman, suffer from an acute case of hypocrite-itis....
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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