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Monday, November 10, 2008

Strawman

A strawman in a discussion or commentary is when someone intentionally mis-states what someone else has said (or what something means), and then uses that fiction as the basis for their argument.

There are often phrases that will alert to someone doing it, such as “Let me summarize...” or “If I’m understanding correctly...” What follows is not always a strawman, but those types of phrases should trigger a person’s warning system.

A strawman is a lie, a fabrication, and sometimes libelous.  Some people are just stupid, and never learned the rules for intellectual debate, but some folks know exactly what they’re doing.

From the Fallacy Files:

As the “straw man” metaphor suggests, the counterfeit position attacked in a Straw Man argument is typically weaker than the opponent’s actual position, just as a straw man is easier to defeat than a flesh-and-blood one. Of course, this is no accident, but is part of what makes the fallacy tempting to commit, especially to a desperate debater who is losing an argument. Thus, it is no surprise that arguers seldom misstate their opponent’s position so as to make it stronger. Of course, if there is an obvious way to make a debating opponent’s position stronger, then one is up against an incompetent debater. Debaters usually try to take the strongest position they can, so that any change is likely to be for the worse. However, attacking a logically stronger position than that taken by the opponent is a sign of strength, whereas attacking a straw man is a sign of weakness.

Example:

“If I say that I have three children who have been home-schooled,” someone commits a strawman when they attempt to counter what I say later with something like, She doesn’t like children, because she only had three, and this proves that home-schooling parents really hate their children. 

In order to win an argument, one must attack the person’s position, not the person themselves, nor a fictionalized version of the person’s position. 

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