When people say “but what about”

[Emptychairdoasolo]

You’ll all know exactly what I mean and will have witnessed it on MN. examples being:

Titan submersible - “but what about the immigrants who have capsized”

There’ll be an animal abusive scandal - “but what about the cattle in the slaughter house every day”

AIBU to think people should use their common sense to realise that on going things we know about aren’t any less sad and horrific but there are times when some things are incredibly rare and shocking circumstances that are bound to attract more attention?

When that little boy from Syria was photographed dead on the beach, it gained mass media attention. But the refugee crisis is ongoing, which is still heartbreaking, but it’s surely common sense to realise that people are going to talk about 5 people dying at the most famous shipwreck in the world over 100 years past its sinking.

I think there is a sensible and useful way to make comparisons and a silly way to make comparisons.

Like you say, the submersible incident last week was bound to get so much attention because it’s such a rare and unusual event. With an unknown outcomes for a few days, and linked to an interesting historical event (titanic) in a very remote/ unexplored area (DEEP in the ocean). So I’m not sure why people wonder why it gets more attention than other disasters which are more common.

I do however think it is interesting to compare the responses to this disaster in comparison with others. How can countries find thousands (millions?) to search for a small number of people who were very likely to have been dead, when they can’t adequately save many people in trouble in the oceans daily. However I think there is a time and a place to make that comparison, and a way to do it that is more respectful to those lost.

“Whataboutery” really pisses me off!

The one you hear alot at the moment is when someone rightly condemns Russias actions in Ukraine, someone else will say “oh but whatabout the US in Iraq?”. Well what about it? The one doesn’t make the other any better.

There are different kinds of whataboutery though

If people are talking about animal rights and someone says, but what about human trafficking, that is something completely different

In this case we had two marine disasters in the same week. More than 500 migrants were left to drown while millions of dollars were spent in a futile rescue effort for 5 wealthy people (with those involved knowing it was futile from very early on). I think it's fair to point that out as a question of politics and ethics.

I'm on the fence. Sometimes people just don't want to consider the 'what about' as it's inconvenient to their narrative and they don't want to consider the bigger picture. At other times the 'what about' is just being purposefully obtuse and missing the point or trying to make ridiculous comparisons.

I hate the term 'whataboutery' generally though as to me it suggests people aren't allowed to question something or have a different opinion on it.

I suppose there's ways and means of doing it.

Prince William on homelessness, for example - 'what about all his houses, eh?' sounds a bit vacuous, as opposed to 'I wonder how he's going to navigate the PR around the royal family's extensive property ownership?'

Whataboutery is rampant as a sabotage tactic on FWR and the Royal Family boards.

Whataboutism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

There is a memorial in a nearby town to me, to one of the crew who perished on the Titanic. Someone laid some flowers their at the weekend. It was posted on Facebook and caused some ructions. Those commenting "what about the 500 migrants" etc.
Someone kindly pointed out that although it's very sad about the migrants deaths, they had no connection to either the town or the Titanic. Of course the insults then started: gammon, bigot, racist
Very predictable, sadly

Agree with this post

Whataboutery is invariably used by people who must be very dense as by definition, they can only hold one thought in their heads. Like virtue signalling goldfish.

Funnily enough, last week I managed to be sorry about the Titan (not to the point of rending my garments and not sleeping, because that's weird, and another trait of the VSG especially on SM) sorry about the migrants, sorry about the monkeys and furious with Boris Johnson.

Whataboutery is invariably used by people who must be very dense as by definition, they can only hold one thought in their heads. Like virtue signalling goldfish.

It's also a very useful tool to steer conversations away from areas some people would rather they didn't cover. Especially useful in politics as you can eradicate any criticism of the government in the media by pushing it "below the fold" as dead-tree editors would have said.

I don't think it's about being rare and shocking because the others are. There simply are some news that travel wider than others and it's okay.

There are a lot more things that happen that don't even make it to the news - some of them are even more shocking and rare. So YANBU but not for the reason that they're more rare or shocking than other news. I disagree with that part.