Johann Hari: How to spot a lame, lame argument
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Independent Minds
There is one particular type of bad argument that has always existed, but it has now spread like tar over the world-wide web, and is seeping into the pubs, coffee shops and opinion columns everywhere. It is known as 'what-aboutery' - and there was a particularly ripe example of it in response to one of my articles last week.
As a rhetorical trick, it is simple. Anyone can do it, and we are all tempted sometimes. When you have lost an argument - when you can't justify your case, and it is crumbling in your hands - you snap back: "But what about x?"
You then raise a totally different subject, and try to get everybody to focus on it - hoping it will distract attention from your own deflated case.
So whenever I report on, say, atrocities committed by Israel, I am bombarded with e-mails saying: "But what about the bad things done by Muslims? Why do you never talk about them?" Whenever I report on the atrocities committed by Islamists, I am bombarded with e-mails saying: "But what about Israel? Why do you never write about the terrible things they do?" And so it goes on, whatever the subject, in an endless international shifting of blame, united in the cry: "What about them! Talk about them instead!"
This argument is almost always disingenuous. How do I know? Because when you write back and explain that, why, I do actually criticize Islamists/Israel/the US/China/whoever-you-have-picked-out-randomly, and here are the articles where I do it, nobody ever writes back and says: fair enough; you consistently condemn human rights abuses, no matter who commits them. No. They scrape around for another "what about." What about Tibet? What about Sri Lanka? What about North Korea? This list never ends, as the other side tries to draw your attention further and further from what you were discussing.
Independent readers have just seen a classic example. Last week I reported from Dubai, pointing out that this glittering city was built on what Human Rights Watch calls "slavery" - bitterly poor people who are conned into going there and forced to stay by a medieval dictatorship. Amongst others, I interviewed an Emirati man called Sultan al-Qassemi who passionately defended this system, saying that it is absolutely right that these workers are blasted with water cannons, arrested, and deported if they try to strike against their slavery-style conditions.
He did not react to my article by responding to the many criticisms I made of Dubai. He can't. He knows they are true. Instead he wrote a piece for the Independent asking: But what about Britain? He listed many things wrong with Britain - homelessness, detention without trial, the abuse of trafficked workers - and cried: talk about them instead!
As it happens, I have criticized all these things about Britain myself, in the British press, and in publications across the world. The difference is - Sultan doesn't oppose the appalling things about his own country. He cheers them on - and all he can do to distract from this shameful fact is to try to change the subject.
The best way to respond to what-aboutery is to state a simple truth. Say it slowly: there can be more than one bad thing in the world. You can oppose American atrocities, and Chinese atrocities. You can be critical of Israel, and of Islamism. You can condemn Dubai's system of slavery, and the fact people are detained without trial in Britain. You can stand independent of governments - including your own - and criticize anyone who chooses to abuse human rights. The world is not divided into a Block of Light, and a Block of Darkness; you don't have to pick a tribe and defend its every action.
So whenever you hear the cry "But what about?!", you can reply: what about we ignore this crude attempt to change the subject, and focus on the subject in hand?
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Comments
Try to compare the number and sheer volume of verbatim spilled on Israel, and on other areas of conflict- Georgia, Sri-Lanka, even- yes- Iraq. oh, and DARFUR. One MILLION DEAD in Darfur.
If reporters in newspapers like the Independent and the Guardian really cared about human life, rather than RATINGS, they would not sell these pre-heated Israel-bashings all the time, but write more about more burning issues. Or write SOMETHING.
Notice how the writer defeats his own cause- by slipping Israel into the unrelated article.
And talking about "but what about?".... You forgot to mention that for every muslim arab terrorist jihadist Israel kills in self defense, Britain kills a hundred in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries a continent away (unlike the arab countries that are next-door to Israel) that never attacked Britain
Sorry, but for apparently "serious" journalists, this is now reminiscent of a playground fight.
A result of the BBC Panorama coverage, plus possibly your original piece, is that the UAE Ministry of Labour is going to review the situation, so some progress has been achieved!
I always thought it was a rather fine expression.
Frankly, some people seem to have a distinct dichotomy in their worldview, and you seem to be of the ilk, that is if you've actually taken the time to pooh-pooh my comments with smug intent, instead of good-natured irony, (as I, ahem, have modestly attempted to do).
While this may not diminish the value of their criticism of a specific issue, it does expose as hypocrisy their claim to be unbiased supporters of a noble principle.
To take israel and palestine as an example, if you condemn Israeli military actions in attacking Gaza but ignore Palestinian rockets fired it Israeli civilian areas you give a very misleading picture. if you also ignore the fact that hamas states publicly they want Israel destroyed and also their principle backers make the same point, then you give a very misleading acount.
In this context what you mock as 'what aboutery' is merely you trying to deflect legitimate criticism of your arguments and methods.
Overall what you say can be true, but not always.
As a separate comment to corporeal4now
"The Jews had 800 years of peace under the Islamic state. But now the zionists are begging for trouble at every opportunity."
Read some real history and you will know this is not true. Jews were not treated as equal citizens in Muslim - for example they were taxed greater than Muslims and faced frequent pogroms in many Arab countries.
Israel was the Jewish ancestral home from which they were expelled two thousand years ago, but they never forgot and wanted it back. Some thousands of jews stayed there throughout. And they returned.
Good luck.
This is because for many, and probably the majority, rationality just doesn't figure.
Those who deploy the tactics described are deliberately being irrational, and are attempting an exercise in deflection.
Indeed, to move from the point a little, I believe it was Nick Griffin who, quite succinctly, put forward the proposition about political power being the product of something other than rational debate.
Although as a general rule the words 'Nick Griffin' and 'correct' can never appear in the same sentence, I would advance the above as being the sole exception.
The sad conclusion then is then that, at least in large part, humanity is not composed of rational beings.
The de facto implication of your article is that no conversation about Dubai should henceforth be complete, without mentioning South Asian labourers. There was, coincidentally, a beeb documentary on the same subject recently - wherein Jamie Oliver, Michael Owen and others were repeatedly pulled up for endorsing Dubai project - because of those South Asian labourers.
No one is saying that it's not an appalling situation, but as someone once said, 'let him withut sin cast the first stone'. I want to now see foreign journalists reporting on the trafficking of Eastern European girls into UK brothels. And I want to see more articles about Iraqi babies being born with no heads, because the British have poisoned their water table with uranium-tipped weaponry.
And I want all that extrapolated to mean that no conversation about the UK can henceforth be complete without mentioning headless Iraqi babies, or young girls being shipped in to suck British cock all day long.
Now if you want to be truely rich beyond you dreams.
Here is how !
1) Go to Dubai
2) Buy an existing company from a "Brass Plate Specialist company" fronted by a Local from Dubai.
3) Pay the Local 40,000 Dirhams (8000 pounds) to turn a blind eye; and he will arrange for you to have a cheque book
4) Find a desperate foreigner to sign on your behalf; and then give him a one way ticket out of Dubai (paying him about 1000 pounds)
5) Start using the pre-signed cheques buying expensive items and machinery and vehicles
6) Resell the items twice using false papers (there are many duplicaters working in Dubai and in teh Offices)
7) The claim of a bounced cheque will only be against teh person who signed teh cheque; who has long since left teh country; in fact you can confront those who you conned and look them in the eye and there is absolutely nothing they can do; the police will support you becuase teh case is only against teh signatory of teh cheque who you have long since paid off and sent out of teh country
8) Meet fellow conmen ( there are 10's of thousands of them) and exchange companies and notes.
9) Display and showcase you sudden wealth by buying property and luxury vehicles and then use front companies to mask your fraudulent transactions.
10) Don't worry about Police or Courts; they are there to protect the conmen; it is a paradise for all conmen; carosel fraudsters and their ilk.
Enjoy your millions. Dubai is a paradise for Cheque Fraud; it is regarded as a legitimate profession, and higly respected; everyone from the criminals; Police and Courts will look at the victime and blame him for their stupidity.
Let's see if it gets picked up by the MSM
Let's see if it gets picked up by the MSM
<I ain't holdin my breath>