Is "both-sides-ism" just the grownup version of group punishment in school?

This question is in General, and it’s about the similarity between punishing a whole class or group of kids when a few misbehave and calling “both sides” out when one politician transgresses.

Personally I’m all about personal responsibility, so I’d rather be called out individually if needed. But I think it’s still considered having manners to be less direct.
And sometimes, both sides are acting out, like the Presidential debates.

The media does that because we (the American people) have decided that appearing biased is the worst possible thing even if it means concealing the truth. I think what’s happening with kids is a bit different: adults often don’t think it’s worth trying to figure out who was really at fault (and kids love blaming each other), so they punish the group. They also may think that it will motivate the other kids into behaving if they know they will all be punished if one misbehaves. The problem is that one selfish kid doesn’t care and everyone else is screwed over.

The insistence on forcing the false narrative that all sides are equally bad is political correctness run amok.
Since you have a 2 party system, where each party represents roughtly half of the population, it is a transparent attempt to not alienate/offend one half of the populace, no matter how deserved the condemnation is.

I don’t think so. I think that the tunnel vision is actually so bad that people struggle to see the faults on “their” side much of the time because it doesn’t seem (or maybe sometimes it isn’t) as flagrant at the “other” side’s offense. In a group of children it’s a little unfair to punish all of the kids for the behavior of one. In division between parties, there is a lot of group behavior (plus behavior from people in elected positions) for which there is group responsibility on both sides. It’s not the same as one collective group being punished for an individual as it would be with a naughty kid in the lunch room getting everyone’s recess cancelled. I also don’t agree that things are or need to be equally bad in order for there to be some call for accountability all around. It seems very black and white to look at it that way and where a lot of frustration comes from for a ton of voters, less bad is not the same as good.

I think it does matter who is actually doing the crime, but children also need to learn about guilt by association and the strength to distance themselves from bad behavior. I would not punish the behaved child the same as the others, but I would want him to learn a lesson.

Can the child in your example who is doing the right thing get up and walk away? Or, will he get in trouble for that too?

Obviously, each situation might have different circumstances.

When my nephew was 15 I remember telling him, “if you’re out with friends and they are do something you know is wrong, call your mom to come get you!” Get the hell out of there. His response was, “I might get in trouble.” Ugh, the trouble is with the kids doing dangerous or illegal things. Sigh.

I’m fairly concerned about this peer pressure people feel to just sit by as bad things happen. The extreme example is Nazi Germany of course. A recent example is the covid situation. Senator Marsha Blackburn was on The View last week and asked about her being in the Rose Garden and no one wearing masks. Her response was (I’m paraphrasing) “I had a mask with me, but nobody else was wearing a mask so I didn’t put mine on,” she continued, “I would tell everyone they should distance and wear a mask and follow the recommendations.”

I think what Blackburn did is happening all over America. People not having the fortitude to tell peers they aren’t comfortable or to stand up and be different. They just sit there, even endangering themselves. My guess is if Blackburn had worn a mask, other people would have too.

I went a little on a tangent, but I think it ties in. If one kid had stood up and walked away from the lunch table, would a few others follow? Is there one kid starting the whole mess?

One kid pushed the other, I would want the two sides to the story.

A similar thing happens in “Corporate America” when a team member is guilty of an offense (such as being late repeatedly). Instead of the manager having a talk with the individual offender, the manager will state expectations of timeliness during a meeting with the entire team. It’s a lack of managerial courage.

“Aren’t these all instances of cowardice on the part of whoever is calling out the bad behavior?”

I would think that they are using peer pressure to work out the offenders by the fact that if it

repeats eventually the group “will “collude together to get the offenders responsible to stop.