The Fog Machine Is the Weapon
TL;DR: Oracular vagueness, whataboutism, and false equivalence are deflection tactics that turn a concrete harm into a swamp, so the antidote is to drag the conversation back to evidence, proportion, and accountability.
The fog machine is the weapon.
Watch the trick happen in real time: someone says, “This company poisoned a river, fired the whistleblower, and then asked taxpayers for a subsidy,” and the deflector glides in wearing a velvet cape of fake profundity: “Ah, but all institutions are corrupt in the age of decline, aren’t they? What about government waste? What about people who litter? Isn’t a worker stealing office supplies basically the same moral universe?” Boom. The original point has been shoved into a cannon, fired through a circus tent, and replaced with a thundercloud of vibes. That’s the move. Oracular language makes the speaker sound wise while saying almost nothing testable; whataboutism drags in a different wrongdoing to avoid the one in front of us; false equivalence pretends two unequal things carry the same weight because both can be described with the same vague word, like “bad” or “corrupt” or “complicated.”
And yes, life is complicated. That’s why this tactic works. It borrows the costume of nuance and uses it to rob the room. If a hospital chain is accused of unsafe staffing, the humane question is whether patients and nurses are being protected, not whether “both sides” sometimes make mistakes in the grand tragic opera of civilization. If renters are facing illegal lockouts, the point isn’t that “small landlords have struggles too” (sure, some do); the point is whether people are being thrown into precarity while someone else extracts rent from their fear. Even a small, barely noticed local item this week about a county health department extending vaccine-clinic hours after an exposure scare had the same lesson tucked inside it: public wellbeing depends on boring, accountable systems working before crisis becomes spectacle. Society doesn’t get stronger by worshiping balance sheets like golden calves. A healthy economy grows from people who are safe enough, free enough, and secure enough to actually live.
Here’s how to spot the deflection before it eats the whole conversation like a rhetorical garbage disposal with teeth:
Oracular fog: Listen for grand, mystical-sounding claims that can’t be checked: “This is just the cycle of empire,” “the real truth is hidden,” “everyone is compromised.” Ask: What specific claim are you making, and what evidence would change your mind?
Whataboutism: Notice when the subject suddenly teleports: corporate wage theft becomes shoplifting, unsafe workplaces become “personal responsibility,” pollution becomes “but China.” Ask: How does that address this specific harm? We can discuss the other issue after this one.
False equivalence: Watch for comparisons that flatten scale, power, intent, and consequence. A person missing a tax form isn’t the same as a multinational hiding profits offshore; a protest blocking traffic isn’t the same as a state crushing dissent. Ask: Are these actually comparable in power, impact, and accountability?
The counterspell is simple, which is why bad-faith arguers hate it with the blazing fury of a thousand comment-section goblins: stay specific. Name the original claim. Separate issues. Compare scale. Demand evidence. Refuse to let “everybody’s flawed” become a magic eraser for the people doing the most damage. You don’t have to win a cage match against every tangent; you can say, calmly and repeatedly, “That may be worth discussing, but it doesn’t answer this.” Keep the spotlight where the harm is. Keep the human beings in frame. And the next time someone tries to turn accountability into fog, don’t chase the mist—point back to the fire.