I don't think it's whataboutism to point out that a worse criminal you are fine with, and a smaller one not, because the latter kills "blue-eyed Europeans" and all that.

You can't just discard observations that you are a hypocritical bag of piss with that one word, "whataboutism". And it only refers to somebody defending their own crimes. Most of real whataboutism I see in social media comes from Turks and Westerners defending Turks.

Other than that, if somebody says that and you don't, I don't care if they're a tankie. Turkey is worse than a Stalinist dictatorship, and I have priorities.

[–] Kata1yst@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually, that's exactly what whataboutism is.

Someone says: wow, topic A is bad.

Whataboutism says: oh yeah, well B is bad/worse!!!1!

Point is, we're not talking about B/Turkey. And B/Turkey being bad doesn't mean that A/Russia is excused from their terrible behavior.

And (gasp!) Just because I oppose A/Russia doesn't mean I support B/Turkey.

The entire argument is bad faith and lacking any logic or critical thinking.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org -2 points 1 year ago

If you support the side opposite to Russia, be it Ukraine or NATO, you sort of support Turkey, cause of the context of alliances and relations. Turkey is in NATO and Turkey is friendly with Ukraine.

Point is, we’re not talking about B/Turkey.

We actually are doing that right now. If you don't want to, you can leave this conversation. That's the way conversations work.

And B/Turkey being bad doesn’t mean that A/Russia is excused from their terrible behavior.

Yes, it isn't. You seem to imply that I said it is. I haven't.

And (gasp!) Just because I oppose A/Russia doesn’t mean I support B/Turkey.

Not in general. But in our specific situation you sort of do through that opposing side being Turkey's friend more than Russia itself.

The entire argument is bad faith and lacking any logic or critical thinking.

On all sides.

Now, about bad faith - if people like you yelling "whataboutism" can prevent a conversation on a certain subject, then it's not really whataboutism. If they can do that without preventing that conversation from happening, then maybe it is. "Whataboutism" is not a basic concept. Once we turn to logic instead of some list of common fallacies, we don't need it (and also logic beats any such shortcut).

Same with "critical thinking".