Saturday, October 27, 2012

Things They Should Invent Words For

This is related to this idea.

Scenario: I think it is important for widgets to be readily available to everyone who needs them.  The last time the Purple Party was in power, they ran on a platform of "Free widgets for all!" However, this platform was not implemented as well as it should have been.  The last time the Yellow Party was in power, they ran on a platform of "Ban widgets!"  And they did ban widgets.

There are some people who, in this situation, would say that I shouldn't vote for the Purple Party because either they lied about their "Widgets for all!" platform or they were incompetent at implementing it.  And there are some who would go so far as to say that I should vote for the Yellow Party to punish the Purple Party for their ineffective widget distribution policy, despite the fact that the Yellow Party has a very effective widget banning policy.

We need a single word or straightforward term for this phenomenon.

4 comments:

Lorraine said...

Spite

laura k said...

Partisanship?

impudent strumpet said...

I think it's more complex than partisanship. If they were Yellow Party partisans, they'd be dissing the Purple Party for wanting to provide widgets in the first place.

impudent strumpet said...

It might be spite. Does spite include hurting yourself worse to dis someone who hurt you slightly?