Whataboutism

I’m on a US TV diet of shrill news shows and late night chat shows. I’m saddened by what it says about us all. [blog.mindrocketnow.com]

Where to begin.

Perhaps it’s the conflation of what is important with what captures attention. This causes Presidents to think that retweeting insane conspiracy theories is acceptable. It creates an environment where enormously rich companies get even richer because they give a voice to everyone, regardless of whether that person causes harm with that voice. 

This false conflation causes noisy trivia to become important because the news is obliged to report on it just because someone important said it. It enables important people to obfuscate their inadequacies by promoting nonsensical bluster. It empowers everyone to retweet opinions without checking if it’s real, or even without actually believing it, because you’re copying a role model. It polarises everyone and everything because you are forced to have an opinion, because the news shows are forced to report on the bullshit that emanates from people in power, which they do gleefully and in an ever more shrill way, just to capture your attention.

This dangerous conflation causes vitally important debate to be lost because it’s dropped off the current news cycle. Climate change hasn’t gone away just because there’s an election in the US. Institutional racism in the West hasn’t been eradicated just because there’s a large rally. The Covid pandemic isn’t over because we’re tired of being afraid of it. Trying to keep what’s really important straight in your own mind is mentally exhausting.

When I look at the news, all I see is responsibility to speak with honesty and integrity is abdicated. Apparently, it’s up to us to decide if that tweet is true, false, nonsense or criminal, not the person who posts it. Apparently wearing a mask is not a sign of how much you care about the people around you, but a sign of your political affiliation. Apparently our trust in institutions is easy to squander, because we’re all too happy to reinvest.

And if this behaviour is called out, it’s too easy to deflect by asking “what about you and your shortcomings?”. I’m a collection of contradictions, they’re very obvious for all to see. It’s an impossibly high standard to need to fix all of my inadequacies before I critically evaluate the crap that comes into my news feed. Whataboutism, or its more cowardly sibling, Iwasonlyjoking, is not moral equivalency, and doesn’t empower elected officials’ bile. Checking “I consent” doesn’t empower tech giants to feed me bile.

There is a difference between free speech and inciting hatred. It is possible to both recognise that Black Lives Matter, and be proud of how we can all live together. It is possible to say something and mean it.

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If you’ve gotten this far into my post and haven’t started haranguing me in the comments, thank you for letting me get this off my chest. Normal service will resume in my next post.