What is a “Straw Man”

[King Merk]

In Leo’s most recent video on Jordan Peterson he uses the term “straw man” and even “steel man” quite frequently.

I’ve done a little digging into the meaning behind these phrases but am still a bit confused.

Would anyone mind giving an in-detail explanation as to what exactly a straw/steel man is? A few examples would also be appreciated. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by King Merk

[Consept]

Straw man = the persons weakest argument or even an almost deliberate misunderstanding of the other person's argument. For example a Conservative might say a progressive wants communism and start arguing from that perspective. 

Steelman = taking the other person's strongest argument and debating that. 

[TheDao]

@King Merk What Leo did in his video. By purpose misinterpreting Jordan Petersons political views to dismiss him. So his critiques on progressives won't get taken serious. 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by TheDao

[ilja]

@TheDao Nice trashtalk, why are you here with your inauthentic ass?

[CultivateLove]

@TheDao Grow up

[TheDao]

5 minutes ago, ilja said:

Nice trashtalk, why are you here with your inauthentic ass?

Its important to name strawmans and to not misinterpret but understand others and be authentic. The rest of the video was nice, the political part was the weakest.

Edited May 11, 2021 by TheDao

[ilja]

@TheDao ah, so to strawman aganist strawmans? like eating meat for veganism?

[King Merk]

@Consept thank you for actually giving a definition lol.

Would love to hear some more examples from whoever feels like sharing. 

[Consept]

35 minutes ago, King Merk said:

@Consept thank you for actually giving a definition lol.

Would love to hear some more examples from whoever feels like sharing. 

No problem bro, haha what happened in here??

Ill break it down a little more for you though, lets say you get into an argument with your partner, you want to win that argument, she says something like 'you dont spend enough time with me' you straw man her and say 'oh so youre saying i dont love you?'. So youve deliberately misinterpreted her point because its easier to make that argument rather than deal with her actual point. If you were steel man her point youd look at it more objectively and try and really understand why shes saying that. 

Youll notice this in debates where people are particularly tied to their perspectives Vegans and meat eaters, conservatives and liberals, feminist and mgtow. These all end up being very binary positions usually because they dont tend to argue the other sides strongest points. There are other ad hominems that are used but strawmanning is quite prominent  

[Leo Gura]

Jordan Peterson is a Nazi.

Bernie Sanders is a communist.

Capitalists are sociopaths.

Religion is for dumb people.

[Fran11]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Jordan Peterson is a Nazi.

Bernie Sanders is a communist.

Capitalists are sociopaths.

Religion is for dumb people.

Says the cult leader 

[Forestluv]

A few strawmen:

-- Pro-abortionists want to kill babies. I disagree. I believe we should value a baby's life.

-- People who want gay marriage believe you can marry whatever you love. I disagree. I don't believe someone should be allowed to marry their pet dog

-- Feminists hate men and want men to suffer. I disagree. I believe everyone should be treated with dignity.

Any idiot can create a strawman. It's much more difficult to create a steelman. In some cases, hundreds of hours of study and contemplation. 

[Roy]

4 hours ago, Consept said:

Conservative might say a progressive wants communism and start arguing from that perspective. 

Straw man? Blyat! Communism is great comrade!

[Inva]

@King Merk new vocabulary, thank you!  

[Ook]

12 hours ago, Fran11 said:

Says the cult leader 

That's a good strawmaning there 

[Jacob Morres]

22 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Jordan Peterson is a Nazi.

Bernie Sanders is a communist.

Capitalists are sociopaths.

Religion is for dumb people.

These are ad homimens if I'm not mistaken 

What @Forestluv said would be strawmans 

https://literarydevices.net/ad-hominem/

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/straw-man-fallacy-examples.html

ad hominems are attacks on character

and strawmans are arguing a differennt argument than the argument at hand

 

another one i know is appeals to authority. which is when you give some body absolute truth of wisdom. like giving science the absolute say because they are "experts" 

i think logical fallacies are super important to know because they will help you see the faultiness of people's arguements and speech 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Jacob Morres

[bejapuskas]

@Roy  I would argue that Russia is not communist almost at all  

[Carl-Richard]

Strawman: you can't defeat the person's actual positions so you make a simplified caricature out of them that are easy to defeat.

Steelman: the opposite of that.

[Carl-Richard]

@TheDao Your entire existence on this forum consists of straws as far as I'm concerned ?

[Carl-Richard]

On 12.5.2021 at 6:44 PM, Jacob Morres said:

These are ad homimens if I'm not mistaken 

They can be both, but ad hominems are often directly addressing some personal quality which deviates from the content of the discussion. For example, if you said that you think math is often portayed as more useful than it truly is, an ad hominem answer to that could be "you think that because you're stupid". Ad hominem is essentially when you turn an initially impersonal discussion into a personal matter when it isn't warranted or appropriate.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Carl-Richard