Every single time anyone posts anything that puts one nation in a bad light, someone comes in with this. Can we please not do this? Your nation will have its chance in the sun too. Hijacking threads like this to say, "well, what about your nation?" is childish to say the absolute least.
Honestly I have come to see the concept of “whataboutism” as harmful because it allows people to engage in extreme double standards while shaming others into supporting any policy no matter how unfair. I have outlined exactly why here, in this post that got a lot comments and upvotes before it was flagged and buried:
It’s like if all humans fart, but then someone points out that we must put someone in jail because they farted. It’s actually extremely appropriate to point to a broader group and say “everybody in that group farts, and it is unreasonable for you to expect zero farting”.
It becomes even worse when a person X who is #34 on the list of worst farting offenders is singled out while the other 33 above them are not mentioned. The anti-X people say “well, you gotta start somewhere”. But they paint targets around the arrow X all day long.
I am not saying everyon who makes a criticism does that, but apples-to-apples comparison and having consistent standards isn’t “whataboutism”.
Well diplomacy is built on quid pro quos and whataboutism so I don’t know what’s childish in this, if anything this comment comes off as pretty naive and childish.
I'm sorry, but no, that is not diplomacy. If you think that is diplomacy, then you're spending a lot of time on tabloids and news headlines and no time where the diplomacy is primarily happening: in stuffy meeting rooms.
This is the behavior of actual children who can't stand to be subjected to critique and deflect with screams and shouts of their own victimhood.
Tomorrow it will be China's debt crisis, and the day after America's latest foreign intervention come to haunt them again but you know what? You can wait your turn. That's the very adult thing to do.
