“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:4, NIV).
A few days ago, I was waiting for my wife’s vehicle to be serviced. A woman walked into the shop as she quarreled with her husband on the phone. Her car had broken down and the husband was upset that she had not taken it to a mechanic sooner. In defense of her delayed action, the woman shouted, “Well, what about you? You promised to fix the faucet in the kitchen weeks ago, yet it’s still broken!”
The self-justifying ploy used by the woman is a tactic known as “whataboutism.” Whataboutism is a defensive response to an accusation by attacking the person making it. Rather than addressing the allegation directly, whataboutism deflects the blame onto the other person.
The origin of the term dates back to a complaint written to the Irish Times in 1974. The complainant decried the use of a tactic by IRA defenders, whom he referred to as “the Whatabouts.” Three days later, the Irish journalist, John Healy, dubbed the concept “whataboutery.”
Although he didn’t use the term specifically, Jesus criticized the practice of whataboutism in his Sermon on the Mount. Jesus denounced any effort to avert blame by pointing the finger at someone else. Before pointing out the speck in someone else’s eye, we should first take responsibility for the plank in our own eye.
Sadly, whataboutism has been on the rise in recent years, particularly in social media. When confronted by a person with a different point of view, many attack their accuser instead of debating the subject at hand. In extreme cases, propagandists use whataboutism as a means of misleading the public.
Rather than turn the focus on our opponents, Jesus directs his followers to view their own indiscretions and fallacies with twenty-twenty vision. The irony of Jesus’ rhetorical metaphor is clear. How can you clearly see a speck in your neighbor’s eye beyond the plank that obstructs your own?
Answer: you can’t.