7 ms·

> 2) Stop US violations of human rights (gitmo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

by krona 10y ago

idra 10y ago
Is invoked in EVERY China-related thread on HN pretty much without exceptions.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 10y ago
  And Russia, and right vs left, etc. Invocation of whataboutism is a mind bug and a lazy excuse to be one-sided that has to die. And it's not just a "let's focus on X FOR NOW" issue (which would still be wrong, as issues should be judged relatively to gauge their importance). It's mainly invoked by people who never bother to point fingers on the non-X sides, so the "let's focus on X FOR NOW" is more like "let's focus on X permanently".
  - megous 10y ago
    Invocation of whataboutism is not a mind bug. It's the problem of never acknowledging your own issues and deflecting the criticism/concerns. The hypothetical interaction that would go "US: Hey China, we worry about your policy X. China: Hey US, we sort of understand where you're coming from, given your history. We also see similar issue with some of your policies..." would be perfectly fine.
vetinari 10y ago
In other words, do as I say, not as I do, otherwise I will call you names. You aren't going to push debate forward with this.
- krona 10y ago
  It's like you're assuming I'm American.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    It's not important, whether you are American or not. See coldtea's reasoning bellow. BBC, The Economist or Edward Lucas are not Americans either.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Yes he is. I wonder if they teach whataboutism as a core argumentation technique in Chinese schools. No one is perfect, if perfection is necessary to criticise or even just report news, then nothing will be criticised or reported.
crdoconnor 10y ago
There's a good Chomsky quote about this: "Actually, the principle that I think we ought to follow is the principle we rightly expected Soviet dissidents to follow. So what principle did we expect Sakharov [a Soviet scientist punished for his criticism of the U.S.S.R.] to follow? Why did people here decide that Sakharov was a moral person? I think he was. Sakharov did not treat every atrocity as identical-he had nothing to say about American atrocities. When he was asked about them, he said, "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them, what I talk about are Soviet atrocities." And that was right-because those were the ones that he was responsible for, and that he might have been able to influence. Again, it's a very simple ethical point: you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, you're not responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else's actions."
coldtea 10y ago
So, my sins don't matter, let's ALWAYS focus on the other side's sins. AKA my country, right or wrong. AKA, refusal to accept that value judgements are relative, not god given absolutes. AKA, priority (let's focus on X and only X now) without actually prioritizing (let's compare to see if X is actually the major offender we should be focusing on)
- laurent123456 10y ago
  There's 41 people in Guatanamo, but there's 1.3 billion people in China. Sure there might be human right issues in the US and in other Western democracies but not at the same scale as China.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Who said this should be limited to Guatanamo? E.g. there are 1.5 million people in US prisons, the 25% of the world's prison population for a country with a mere 4% of the world's people. Predominantly black too. How's that not a huge human rights issue? Or the police abuse/innocent shootings, in numbers unheard of even in developing backwater countries? But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going? And don't just ask some group back in the 90s in Tiananmen square -- because we could always ask the Kent State students in 1970, the blacks in Selma, the OWS, the Tea Party, the ones protesting against Bush/Obama/Trump etc and get a picture that wouldn't necessarily be what most of American's feel too. There surely are human right abuses in China. But it's the Chinese (the people, not the government) that should define what they are, through their own values and preferences, not some finger pointing foreigners. Especially from countries with a large history of plundering, which also involves China (opium wars, etc) and most of the Pacific.
    - PJDK 10y ago
      > But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going? From the article "We'd arranged to meet a woman in her village in China's central Hunan Province and to then travel with her by train to Beijing, filming as we went. But we never did get to meet our interviewee. The story we ended up with, however, reveals more about the exercise of power in China than any interview ever could. It is one that involves violence, intimidation and a forced confession - my first in my long reporting experience in China - in which I found myself apologising for "behaviour causing a bad impact" and for trying to conduct an "illegal interview"." So, yes, this exact story is about asking Chinese people about their government and having their equipment smashed and being forced to sign confessions for their efforts. It should certainly be for the Chinese to define these things, the fact they can't is rather the point.
k-mcgrady 10y ago
The OP is not invoking whataboutism. It's actually an important point. If the US (or any other western country) tries to admonish China there are plenty of human rights violations in our own countries which China will come back with. The point is that they will be able to engage in whataboutism. In global politics hypocrisy (why do we need to call it whataboutism?) is going to come back to bite you.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  A century of examples from Russia and American history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
- seppin 10y ago
  No, it's textbook false equivalency. When Gitmo was called "the gulag of our time", the UN failed to mention that while Gitmo had about 150 prisoners at it's peak, Sibera had tens of millions. It's not an appropriate comparison.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  > In global politics hypocrisy (why do we need to call it whataboutism?) is going to come back to bite you. No, that is exactly the very definition of a whataboutism! Many Chinese feel like they always need the high ground, and if their criticiser is not "perfect", whatever they say is null and void. This is just nuts, because no one is perfect.
  - srssays 10y ago
    There's a slight difference between being "not perfect" and having a torture camp and a president who says the US doesn't torture enough people (!). When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept. That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      What do US torture camps have anything to do with BBC journalists? Really, what? And anyways, how do US torture camps compare to Chinese torture camps? Its not like China is a paragon of virtue here, torture by the police is a huge problem that even the gov admits to (hey, police shouldn't torture people, please don't, it makes us look bad). > When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept. And who is the "US"? It is like some unified person that speaks with one voice? Is the NyTimes the US? Is the BBC the US? When I speak out on China, am I the US? > That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account. That is a straw man. We can't hold China to account for their human rights behavior, we have no right to do that. But we can damn be sure that everyone knows about it. I would expect the same for other countries with respect to the US.
taneq 10y ago
Actually it's more about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy
- seppin 10y ago
  Hypocrisy isn't a crime, and it doesn't erase crimes either.

> 2) Stop US violations of human rights (gitmo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

by krona 10y ago

> 2) Stop US violations of human rights (gitmo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

idra 10y ago

Is invoked in EVERY China-related thread on HN pretty much without exceptions.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 10y ago
And Russia, and right vs left, etc. Invocation of whataboutism is a mind bug and a lazy excuse to be one-sided that has to die. And it's not just a "let's focus on X FOR NOW" issue (which would still be wrong, as issues should be judged relatively to gauge their importance). It's mainly invoked by people who never bother to point fingers on the non-X sides, so the "let's focus on X FOR NOW" is more like "let's focus on X permanently".
- megous 10y ago
  Invocation of whataboutism is not a mind bug. It's the problem of never acknowledging your own issues and deflecting the criticism/concerns. The hypothetical interaction that would go "US: Hey China, we worry about your policy X. China: Hey US, we sort of understand where you're coming from, given your history. We also see similar issue with some of your policies..." would be perfectly fine.

vetinari 10y ago

In other words, do as I say, not as I do, otherwise I will call you names. You aren't going to push debate forward with this.

krona 10y ago
It's like you're assuming I'm American.
- vetinari 10y ago
  It's not important, whether you are American or not. See coldtea's reasoning bellow. BBC, The Economist or Edward Lucas are not Americans either.
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Yes he is. I wonder if they teach whataboutism as a core argumentation technique in Chinese schools. No one is perfect, if perfection is necessary to criticise or even just report news, then nothing will be criticised or reported.

crdoconnor 10y ago

There's a good Chomsky quote about this: "Actually, the principle that I think we ought to follow is the principle we rightly expected Soviet dissidents to follow. So what principle did we expect Sakharov [a Soviet scientist punished for his criticism of the U.S.S.R.] to follow? Why did people here decide that Sakharov was a moral person? I think he was. Sakharov did not treat every atrocity as identical-he had nothing to say about American atrocities. When he was asked about them, he said, "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them, what I talk about are Soviet atrocities." And that was right-because those were the ones that he was responsible for, and that he might have been able to influence. Again, it's a very simple ethical point: you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, you're not responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else's actions."

coldtea 10y ago

So, my sins don't matter, let's ALWAYS focus on the other side's sins. AKA my country, right or wrong. AKA, refusal to accept that value judgements are relative, not god given absolutes. AKA, priority (let's focus on X and only X now) without actually prioritizing (let's compare to see if X is actually the major offender we should be focusing on)

laurent123456 10y ago
There's 41 people in Guatanamo, but there's 1.3 billion people in China. Sure there might be human right issues in the US and in other Western democracies but not at the same scale as China.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Who said this should be limited to Guatanamo? E.g. there are 1.5 million people in US prisons, the 25% of the world's prison population for a country with a mere 4% of the world's people. Predominantly black too. How's that not a huge human rights issue? Or the police abuse/innocent shootings, in numbers unheard of even in developing backwater countries? But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going? And don't just ask some group back in the 90s in Tiananmen square -- because we could always ask the Kent State students in 1970, the blacks in Selma, the OWS, the Tea Party, the ones protesting against Bush/Obama/Trump etc and get a picture that wouldn't necessarily be what most of American's feel too. There surely are human right abuses in China. But it's the Chinese (the people, not the government) that should define what they are, through their own values and preferences, not some finger pointing foreigners. Especially from countries with a large history of plundering, which also involves China (opium wars, etc) and most of the Pacific.
  - PJDK 10y ago
    > But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going? From the article "We'd arranged to meet a woman in her village in China's central Hunan Province and to then travel with her by train to Beijing, filming as we went. But we never did get to meet our interviewee. The story we ended up with, however, reveals more about the exercise of power in China than any interview ever could. It is one that involves violence, intimidation and a forced confession - my first in my long reporting experience in China - in which I found myself apologising for "behaviour causing a bad impact" and for trying to conduct an "illegal interview"." So, yes, this exact story is about asking Chinese people about their government and having their equipment smashed and being forced to sign confessions for their efforts. It should certainly be for the Chinese to define these things, the fact they can't is rather the point.

k-mcgrady 10y ago

The OP is not invoking whataboutism. It's actually an important point. If the US (or any other western country) tries to admonish China there are plenty of human rights violations in our own countries which China will come back with. The point is that they will be able to engage in whataboutism. In global politics hypocrisy (why do we need to call it whataboutism?) is going to come back to bite you.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
A century of examples from Russia and American history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
seppin 10y ago
No, it's textbook false equivalency. When Gitmo was called "the gulag of our time", the UN failed to mention that while Gitmo had about 150 prisoners at it's peak, Sibera had tens of millions. It's not an appropriate comparison.
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
> In global politics hypocrisy (why do we need to call it whataboutism?) is going to come back to bite you. No, that is exactly the very definition of a whataboutism! Many Chinese feel like they always need the high ground, and if their criticiser is not "perfect", whatever they say is null and void. This is just nuts, because no one is perfect.
- srssays 10y ago
  There's a slight difference between being "not perfect" and having a torture camp and a president who says the US doesn't torture enough people (!). When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept. That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    What do US torture camps have anything to do with BBC journalists? Really, what? And anyways, how do US torture camps compare to Chinese torture camps? Its not like China is a paragon of virtue here, torture by the police is a huge problem that even the gov admits to (hey, police shouldn't torture people, please don't, it makes us look bad). > When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept. And who is the "US"? It is like some unified person that speaks with one voice? Is the NyTimes the US? Is the BBC the US? When I speak out on China, am I the US? > That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account. That is a straw man. We can't hold China to account for their human rights behavior, we have no right to do that. But we can damn be sure that everyone knows about it. I would expect the same for other countries with respect to the US.

taneq 10y ago

Actually it's more about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

seppin 10y ago
Hypocrisy isn't a crime, and it doesn't erase crimes either.