Whataboutism

TL;DR

This paper models whataboutism as a strategic deflection in social conflicts, showing it can increase offensive speech and undermine civility norms, especially in polarized societies.

Contribution

It introduces a formal model of whataboutism within a psychological game framework and analyzes its impact on social norms and offensive speech dynamics.

Findings

Whataboutism can lead to increased offensive speech.

Availability of whataboutism may cause civility norms to break down.

Polarized societies are particularly vulnerable to norm breakdowns due to whataboutism.

Abstract

We propose a model of whataboutism -- a rhetorical strategy that deflects criticism by citing similar misconduct that goes uncriticized on the critic's side -- and study its implications for social norms governing offensive speech. In an infinite-horizon psychological game with two rival camps, agents weigh the intrinsic benefit of offensive speech against the risk of condemnation. External criticism can be deflected via an equilibrium-based whataboutism rebuttal. We characterize the unique dynamically stable Psychological Subgame Perfect Equilibrium and show that the availability of whataboutism exacerbates offensive speech, to the extent that civility norms can break down entirely, especially in polarized societies.