It seems odd to treat whataboutism as specifically anti-American, and to identify it so closely with Russia (it was a staple of Soviet-era rhetoric, but not nearly so much for Putin).
The most prevalent form of whataboutism in contemporary debate is its use to defend Israel against criticism for war crimes etc. Here's a typical example from Bret Stephens in the NY Times
Ryan Hass’ piece on national confidence and US-China relations offers an interesting hypothesis, which is however likely to stay at the level of hypothesis. In particular, it is questionable that the history of the last 75 years of US-China relations may offer insight that are all that relevant to the current situation, which reflects an elevation of the stakes of US-China relations that was almost unthinkable until 30 years ago.
I strongly subscribe however to the assertion:
While the scapegoats of this current bout of national anxiety are varied and include globalists, immigrants, and allies, China serves as an organizing feature of discourse. China and its leaders act as a foil that certain American leaders use to warn against the erosion of national character and the depletion of national competitiveness.
The polarisation of the cultural-political landscape in the US implies that events and actors in the RoW are largely treated as ‘afar-group’, which enter the domestic political debate, if at all, predominantly as a function of their putative positioning in the all-consuming domestic in-group/out-group confrontation between the blue tribe and the red tribe (eg republican sympathies for Putin’s Russia have nothing to do with Russia’s political posture and everything to do with its anti-woke characterisation) (for a description of in group/outgroup dynamics see https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/).
According to this reading China offers the rare if not unique case of an actor that is ‘big’ enough to qualify as ‘out-group’ for both the blue and red tribes in the US. It is therefore not surprising that not ‘certain American leaders’ but more or less all current American leaders should use China as a foil for mobilisation of national resources.
It would be interesting to extend the analyse to China, but I am afraid I know much less about China than the US.
It seems odd to treat whataboutism as specifically anti-American, and to identify it so closely with Russia (it was a staple of Soviet-era rhetoric, but not nearly so much for Putin).
The most prevalent form of whataboutism in contemporary debate is its use to defend Israel against criticism for war crimes etc. Here's a typical example from Bret Stephens in the NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/opinion/gaza-protests-venezuela.html
Thanks for the reference to Karpf … saved me reading Silver’s latest!
The Farrell piece was wonderful although I'm going to have to read it again to make sure I understood it.
As someone fairly ignorant, is there a reason Ernest Gellner isn't in print?
Ryan Hass’ piece on national confidence and US-China relations offers an interesting hypothesis, which is however likely to stay at the level of hypothesis. In particular, it is questionable that the history of the last 75 years of US-China relations may offer insight that are all that relevant to the current situation, which reflects an elevation of the stakes of US-China relations that was almost unthinkable until 30 years ago.
I strongly subscribe however to the assertion:
While the scapegoats of this current bout of national anxiety are varied and include globalists, immigrants, and allies, China serves as an organizing feature of discourse. China and its leaders act as a foil that certain American leaders use to warn against the erosion of national character and the depletion of national competitiveness.
The polarisation of the cultural-political landscape in the US implies that events and actors in the RoW are largely treated as ‘afar-group’, which enter the domestic political debate, if at all, predominantly as a function of their putative positioning in the all-consuming domestic in-group/out-group confrontation between the blue tribe and the red tribe (eg republican sympathies for Putin’s Russia have nothing to do with Russia’s political posture and everything to do with its anti-woke characterisation) (for a description of in group/outgroup dynamics see https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/).
According to this reading China offers the rare if not unique case of an actor that is ‘big’ enough to qualify as ‘out-group’ for both the blue and red tribes in the US. It is therefore not surprising that not ‘certain American leaders’ but more or less all current American leaders should use China as a foil for mobilisation of national resources.
It would be interesting to extend the analyse to China, but I am afraid I know much less about China than the US.
There's this cold war, hydrogen bombs thing, fallout shelters in the backyard....