The pot calling the kettle black

The pot calling the kettle black

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles H. Bennett's illustration of the saying (1860), with a coalman confronting a chimney sweep

"The pot calling the kettle black" is a proverbial idiom that may be of Spanish origin, of which English versions began to appear in the first half of the 17th century. It means a situation in which somebody accuses someone else of a fault which the accuser shares, and therefore is an example of psychological projection, or hypocrisy. Use of the expression to discredit or deflect a claim of wrongdoing by attacking the originator of the claim for their own similar behavior (rather than acknowledging the guilt of both) is the tu quoque logical fallacy.

Tu quoque

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the logical fallacy. For the historical quotation "Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi", see Et tu, Brute? For the play by John Cooke, see Greene's Tu Quoque. For legal defense, see tu quoque defense.

Tu quoque (/tju;;kwo;kwi;/; Latin for 'you also') is a discussion technique that intends to discredit the opponent's argument by attacking the opponent's own personal behavior and actions as being inconsistent with their argument, so that the opponent is hypocritical. This specious reasoning is a special type of ad hominem attack. The Oxford English Dictionary cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play The Cittie Gallant as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.

Form and explanation
The (fallacious) tu quoque argument follows the template (i.e. pattern):[2]

Person A claims that statement X is true.
Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
Therefore, X is false.
As a specific example, consider the following scenario where Person A and Person B just left a store.

Person A: "You took that item without paying for it. What you did is morally wrong!"
Here, X is the statement: "Stealing from a store is morally wrong." Person A is asserting that statement X is true.
Person B: "So what? I remember when you once did the same thing. You didn't think it was wrong and neither is this."
Person B claims that Person A is a hypocrite because Person A once committed this same action.
Person B has argued that because Person A is a hypocrite, he does not have a right to pass sentences on others before judging himself.
Other artificial examples
The example above was worded in a way to make it amenable to the template given above. However, in colloquial language, the tu quoque technique more often makes an appearance in more subtle and less explicit ways, such as in the following example in which Person B is driving a car with Person A as a passenger:

Person A: "Stop running so many stop signs."
Person B: "You run them all the time!"
Although neither Person A nor Person B explicitly state what X is, because of the colloquial nature of the conversation, it is nevertheless understood that statement X is something like: "Running stop signs is wrong" or some other statement that is similar in spirit.

Person A and/or Person B are also allowed to be groups of individuals (e.g. organizations, such as corporations, governments, or political parties) rather than individual people.[note 1] For example, Persons A and B might be governments such as those of the United States and the former Soviet Union, which is the situation that led to the term "whataboutism" with the "And you are lynching Negroes" argument.

The tu quoque technique can also appear outside of conversations. For example, it is possible for someone who supports a certain Politician B, who recently did something wrong, to justify not changing their support to another politician by reasoning with themselves:

"Yes, Politician B did do this-or-that immoral thing, but then again so do other politicians. So what's the big deal?"
In this example, Person B was "Politician B" while Person A was "other politicians."

Whataboutism is one particularly well-known modern instance of this technique.

See also
Accusation in a mirror
Clean hands
False equivalence
In pari delicto
List of fallacies
List of Latin phrases
Psychological projection
The pot calling the kettle black
Two wrongs make a right
Victor's justice
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
Matthew 7:5
Notes
 This usage of the word "person" is similar to its usage in law, where the term "person" means "legal person" rather than "natural person" (where the latter refers only to living human beings). Every natural person is a legal person but there are legal persons, such as corporations or political parties, that are not natural persons. An organization might release an official statement that uses the tu quoque fallacy, in which case they would be "Person B" in this article.
References
 "tu quoque". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2016-04-24. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
 "Fallacy: Ad Hominem Tu Quoque". Nizkor project. Retrieved 24 November 2015. [dead link]

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And you are lynching Negroes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"And you are lynching Negroes" (Russian: "А у вас негров вешают", romanized: A u vas negrov veshaut; which also means "Yet, in your [country], [they] hang Negroes") is a catchphrase that describes or satirizes Soviet responses to US criticisms of Soviet human rights violations.

The Soviet media frequently covered racial discrimination, financial crises, and unemployment in the United States, which were identified as failings of the capitalist system that had been supposedly erased by state socialism. Lynchings of African Americans were brought up as an embarrassing skeleton in the closet for the US, which the Soviets used as a form of rhetorical ammunition when reproached for their own economic and social failings. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the phrase became widespread as a reference to Russian information-warfare tactics. Its use subsequently became widespread in Russia to criticize any form of US policy.

Former Czech president and writer V;clav Havel placed the phrase among "commonly canonized demagogical tricks".[7] The Economist described it as a form of whataboutism that became ubiquitous after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[5] The book Exit from Communism by author Stephen Richards Graubard wrote that it symbolized a divorce from reality.[8]

Author Michael Dobson compared it to the idiom the pot calling the kettle black, and called the phrase a "famous example" of tu quoque reasoning.[9] The conservative magazine National Review called it "a bitter Soviet-era punch line",[10] and added "there were a million Cold War variations on the joke".[10] The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described use of the idiom as a form of Soviet propaganda.[11] The British liberal political website Open Democracy called the phrase "a prime example of whataboutism". In her work Security Threats and Public Perception, Elizaveta Gaufman described the fallacy as a tool to reverse someone's argument against them.


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The Daily Beast

Opinion: Look! It Is the Orange Pot Calling the Kettle Black
Opinion by Nell Scovell •
05/11/24
Fullscreen button
Scott Olson

© Provided by The Daily Beast

On the witness stand Thursday, Stormy Daniels was cross-examined by the prosecution about trying to profit off her notoriety.

“When Trump was indicted in this case, you celebrated on Twitter by repeatedly tweeting and pushing merchandise you were selling in your store right?” said defense attorney Susan Necheles according to CNN.

“...People asked how they could support me so I tweeted the link to my store,” Daniels responded.

“That was you shilling your merchandise, right?” Necheles asks.

Daniels was quick to return fire. “Not unlike Mr. Trump,” she said.

Under oath, Daniels spoke the truth.

In the shilling Olympics, Trump is a gold medalist. Just four miles from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse where Donald Trump faces 34 counts related to falsifying New York business records to interfere with the election, this Trump-y merchandise is being pushed in his store.

The Daily Beast recently visited Trump Tower which we called “The Saddest Building in NYC.” But these all-new photos show that Trump Tower is also the Shilling-est Building in NYC.

Big bite Donald bottle opener and magnet
Caption: “Enough with the speeches…” Yes, please!


Donald Trump talking pen
Caption: Shouldn’t this be a Sharpie?


Trump T-shirt and Trump football
Caption: The Trump mannequin is headless. Fill in joke here.


Trump neoprene cup insulator
Caption: Probably made in “Chai-nah.”


Trump slippers
Caption: Perfect for pairing with silky pajamas to entertain women in your penthouse suite while your wife is at home with your newborn.


Trump chocolate bars
Caption: Chocolate coins aren’t worthy of the Trump name. That’s why he sells gold bars.


Trump socks
Caption: Stars and stripes on socks shows Trump’s deep reverence to the flag.


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shill
1 of 2
verb
;shil
shilled; shilling; shills
Synonyms of shill
intransitive verb

1
: to act as a shill
2
: to act as a spokesperson or promoter
the eminent Shakespearean producer … is now shilling for a brokerage house
—Andy Rooney
shill

2 of 2
noun
1
a
: one who acts as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler)
b
: one who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter
2
: PITCH sense 8a


Did you know?
The Conniving Roots of Shill

The action at the heart of the verb shill—promoting someone or something for pay—is not, on its face, unseemly. After all, that is what marketers and public relations firms do. But when someone is said to be shilling for something or someone there is a distinct note of disapproval, and often the implication that the act is somehow corrupt or dishonest, or that the product or person being promoted is not to be trusted. This connotation is actually the word’s birthright: in the early 1900s, the noun shill referred to a type of con artist, specifically one who aided others in their efforts to part people from their money. For example, a shill might be paid to fake a big win at a casino to make a game look easily winnable. The first uses of the verb shill, appearing around the same time as the noun, show it applying to the kinds of cons shills did, but the term eventually came to be used in cases when someone was simply promoting someone or something. Perhaps fitting for a word with a criminal past, shill has a mysterious origin: it’s thought to be a shortened form of the older synonymous term shillaber, but the etymological trail goes cold there.

Examples of shill in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Verb
Better Together Most of these apps are based on the central premise that most of us would rather talk to family or close friends than with a pretty stranger shilling snack boxes.
—Adrienne So, WIRED, 8 Apr. 2024
Hilarious commercials included Kate McKinnon and a cat shilling Hellmann‘s mayo, and Ben Affleck dancing like an idiot for Dunkin’ Donuts.
—Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 12 Feb. 2024