If I were to tell you that you can’t win, would you still want to play the game?
Or would you double down and try to prove me wrong?
How about if I were to I tell you that there are games that, even if you win, everyone loses?
Today—in this 6th installment (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) in this series on the art of healthy conversations—I want to talk about two of those games:
WHATABOUT and GOTCHA.
In the game of WHATABOUT (aka YEAHBUT), there is a core strategy—we do our very best to camouflage the shortcomings of our positions (or our character) by highlighting the shortcomings of the opposing position or the character of our opponents.
We see it all the time (and use it far too often) in the realm of politics, where it is almost impossible to rationally and calmly deal with a legitimate critique of a policy or action without someone from the second party pointing out something worse about a policy or action of someone in the first party.
Instead of answering questions and trying to clean up our own messes, we throw mud at the other side. It’s always about making ourselves or our side look better by comparison to the other side.
Sure, what we did was bad, but what about what they did? It was so much worse! And they’ve been doing it for years! Do you remember that time in 1972 …
The game of WHATABOUT has become so prevalent in our society that you can find multiple definitions of “whataboutism” with a simple Google search.
According to Merriam-Webster.com, whataboutism is “the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse.”
And the unfortunate reality is that it does nothing to strengthen the position of the person who uses the strategy. It’s an excuse and a deflection and nobody wins.
In the game of GOTCHA (aka DIDYAKNOW), we spend all our time as archaeologists digging up dirt on our opponents. It’s the proactive counterpart to the more reactive game of WHATABOUT.
GOTCHA takes the initiative and goes for the quick win. It’s like a sneak attack before sunrise. It’s like a sucker punch before the bell. It’s like a secret informant leaking damaging information to the press. (It’s also apparently like a complex mixture of metaphors).
Just for grins, I also Googled gotcha.
Merriam-Webster: Gotcha is “an unexpected usually disconcerting challenge, revelation, or catch. Also an attempt to embarrass, expose, or disgrace someone (such as a politician) with a gotcha.”
And just like with the game of WHATABOUT, the game of GOTCHA has no winners.
Am I saying we can’t out-WHATABOUT or out-GOTCHA each other? Of course not.
I’m saying that, if we are trying to build a culture where healthy, artful, productive conversation and dialogue can result in building better communities, those games result in three kinds of losers: (1) humiliated losers whose deficiencies were highlighted most, (2) deluded losers who think they won but who lost the respect of reasonable people, and (3) the community itself because we can’t thrive together if we are beating each other up.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we scuttled the games where no one can win?
Until next week, be amazing.
