3 ms·

I think this happens all the time as a form of societal procrastination. Like in a city where homelessness is rampant, and the city government meets up and the

• mjburgess 3y ago
  That's true -- but sometimes people are being accused of that when they arent doing it. To say, eg., "my country did X too!" when "Country B did X" could be whataboutism, or it could be pointing to an international game with its own rules that all players are complicit in -- such an observation is a kind of rebuke to moralism. Here we can read this sort of reply to those who worry about airtags in a similar sort of way: what, exactly does the principle, "limit objects which make a social environment less safe" do if applied mechanically -- rather than as a sort of circumstantial moralism about some recent headline. Perhaps often, then, whataboutism is really a kind of distaste for hastey moralism about circumstantial matters