The Defensive Escalation

Whataboutism — deflecting criticism by pointing out similar misconduct on the critic’s side — is usually analyzed as a rhetorical trick. It changes the subject without addressing the accusation. The standard view treats it as irrational or dishonest: a failure of discourse.

Eliaz and Spiegler (arXiv:2603.08098) show it is neither. In an infinite-horizon game between two rival groups, where each member weighs the pleasure of offensive speech against the risk of condemnation, whataboutism is a rational equilibrium strategy. The result is precise and disturbing.

The mechanism: condemnation deters offensive speech only if the condemner has moral standing. Whataboutism destroys that standing by making the condemner’s own record part of the evaluation. Once whataboutism is available as a rebuttal, the expected cost of being condemned drops — because any condemnation can be deflected. With the cost lower, more people speak offensively. With more offensive speech, more material exists for future whataboutism. The feedback loop is self-amplifying.

The paper characterizes the unique dynamically stable equilibrium and shows that it produces strictly more offensive speech than the equilibrium without whataboutism. The escalation is not a failure of the equilibrium — it IS the equilibrium. Civility norms can collapse entirely, and the collapse is worst in polarized societies, where each side has more ammunition to point at.

The structural insight: whataboutism is not a move within the game of discourse. It is a move that changes the game itself. It doesn’t rebut the accusation; it degrades the institution of accusation. Each instance of whataboutism makes all future condemnation less costly to deflect, which makes all future offenses less costly to commit. The strategy is individually rational and collectively catastrophic — a social trap formalized.

The defense was supposed to reduce the offense. Instead, the availability of the defense is what escalates it.