May One Only Criticize the Good if One Simultaneously Condemns the Bad?

I. The Demand

The demand is so widespread that it is barely perceived as a demand anymore. It sounds like fairness, like balance, like intellectual honesty. It runs: those who criticize A must also criticize B. Those who criticize the West must condemn Russia. Those who criticize Israel must name Hamas. Those who criticize NATO must condemn Putin's war of aggression. Those who criticize the US must mention China. Those who criticize the Democrats must also criticize the Republicans — and vice versa, always and vice versa.

Those who do not fulfill this condition are considered suspect. One-sided. Propagandists of the other side. Putin apologists, antisemites, anti-Americans — the label changes with context, the structure stays the same: criticism of the good is only legitimate when it is authenticated by the condemnation of the bad.

This demand is not a requirement of fairness. It is an instrument for preventing discourse. And it is time to say that clearly.

II. What the Demand Really Requires

Those who demand that a critic condemn the opposite in the same breath are not demanding more nuance. They are demanding a loyalty declaration.

The sentence I criticize Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank is a precise, verifiable, politically relevant statement. It has a clear subject, clear evidence, clear consequences. The sentence requires no supplement of but Hamas is of course also terrible in order to be true. It is true or false on the basis of its own evidence — regardless of what Hamas does.

Those who demand the supplement are not demanding more truth. They are demanding a signal. They are demanding that the critic demonstrate their tribal affiliation — that they show which side they are on. That is a tribal requirement, not an epistemic one. It has nothing to do with the truth of the criticized matter.

And it has a practical consequence: it makes criticism dependent on a preamble that embeds and validates the criticism. Those who are not prepared to provide this preamble — who want to let the criticism stand on its own, because it stands on its own — are excluded from legitimate discourse. The symmetry demand is a bouncer: it only lets in those who show the right ID.

III. The Asymmetry of the Demand

There is a revealing asymmetry in the application of this demand that shows what it really is.

When an American commentator criticizes Russian foreign policy, they are not asked to condemn the Iraq War in the same breath, to name the CIA torture programmes, to condemn the drone strikes. Criticism of Russia stands on its own — it needs no symmetric supplement of self-criticism. It is legitimate without authentication.

But when the same commentator criticizes American foreign policy, the question immediately arises: and what about Russia? What about China? As if any criticism of one's own were only legitimate when embedded in a global comparison of badness where one's own comes out better.

The symmetry demand is applied asymmetrically. It does not hit those who represent the official line. It hits those who deviate from it. That is its actual purpose: not to produce balance, but to punish deviation.

A simple test: is the same demand made of everyone? Does the person who condemns Putin's war have to simultaneously condemn the Iraq War? Does the person who criticizes Hamas have to simultaneously name Israeli settlement policy? In most discourse contexts the answer is: no. The demand applies in only one direction. That reveals it.

IV. Whataboutism as Relative

The symmetry demand has a well-known relative: whataboutism. What about...? is the Soviet invention for neutralizing every accusation with a counter-accusation. You criticize our gulags? What about your prisons? You criticize our elections? What about your racial segregation?

Whataboutism is not an answer to the criticism. It is a distraction from it. It does not attempt to show that the criticism is false — it attempts to show that the critic is unreliable because their own house is not in order. But the credibility of the critic has nothing to do with the truth of the criticism. A criticism advanced by a hypocrite can still be true.

The symmetry demand is the more polite, intellectually disguised whataboutism. It does not say: you are wrong. It says: you may only say that if you simultaneously say this other thing. That is structurally the same — only with the appearance of fairness.

The difference between legitimate contextualization and whataboutism is real, but narrow. Context is sometimes genuinely relevant: those who criticize settlement policy without knowing the full conflict context are analysing superficially. But that is an epistemic problem — a problem of depth of analysis — not a problem of loyalty. The solution is more analysis, not the demand for a declaration of condemnation.

V. What Good Criticism Actually Needs

Good criticism does not need symmetry. It needs precision, evidence, and honesty about its own limits.

Precision means: the subject of the criticism is clearly named. Not the West is bad, but this specific policy has these specific consequences for these specific people. The more precise the criticism, the less it can be deflected by the symmetry demand — because it has a concrete subject that is true or false, independently of everything else.

Evidence means: the criticism is based on something verifiable, not on conjecture or sympathy. Those who document Israeli settlement policy with numbers, with court rulings, with reports from human rights organizations — them one cannot meet with a loyalty demand. One must engage with the evidence.

Honesty about one's own limits means: those who formulate a specific criticism do not have to pretend they possess the complete truth. They can say: I am criticizing this aspect here. The other aspects exist. They are not my subject in this text. That is not one-sidedness — it is intellectual modesty.

What criticism does not need is the ritual preamble of condemnation. Naturally X is also terrible, but... — this sentence is not an analytical gain. It is an entry ticket to discourse that one buys to avoid being seen as a sympathizer. It distracts, it dilutes, it signals loyalty instead of analysing.

VI. The Political Function of the Compulsion toward Symmetry

The compulsion toward symmetric condemnation has a political function that goes beyond the individual discourse: it protects the powerful from specific criticism.

Specific criticism is dangerous for the powerful — because it is precise, because it names consequences, because it assigns responsibility. General condemnation of all sides is harmless — because it hits nobody, because it leaves conditions as they are, because it produces the appearance of critical thinking without its effect.

The symmetry compulsion converts specific criticism into general condemnation. Those who say this government committed this crime are forced to add: and that government committed that crime, and anyway everything is terrible. The result is an equivalence of accusations that is no longer one — a statement that accuses no one because it accuses everyone.

That is the political function: to dissolve criticism into relativism. To blur the distinction between concrete responsibility and the general badness of the world. To transform the demand for consequences into a shrug: yes, everyone is terrible, what can one do.

Those who understand this function also understand why the symmetry demand is so frequently raised by those with an interest in existing power relations. It is not an instrument of truth-seeking. It is an instrument of truth-prevention.

The demand to authenticate criticism of the good
with the condemnation of the bad
is not a requirement of fairness.
It is the demand for a loyalty declaration —
and the punishment for refusing it
is exclusion from legitimate discourse.
That is called censorship.
Even when it sounds polite. — beyond-decay.org