One of the weirdest things about the strawman arguments is that is a large mass of people willing to play the role of that strawman. Cato-At-Liberty points out that Max Boot is more than willing to be the Neocon kook. The fact the people want to jump in and play various roles is probably good for discourse since it lets us examine ideas in greater depths.
It seems to me that the main thing our country needs to avoid is being ruled by the kooky extremes that exists in all parties, religions and ideologies.
If A is critical of something that B is doing, and creates strawman C as part of their argument. It remains a strawman fallacy for as long as B does not equal C.
ReplyDeleteIf B adopts the guise of C, then it isn't a strawman argument after all.
If kook D adopts the guise of C then it is still a strawman fallacy.
With all the kooks, out there, that are willing to argue any point, for any reason, you have to be careful with whom you pick up a debate.
Straw man arguments often become self fulfilling prophecies.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the reasons that I don't call straw man arguments fallacies. The straw man argument is a rhetorical device. It actually does have a place ...
... IN FICTION!!!!
One really strange phenomena is that many people who become disallusioned with progressive ideologies end up behaving like the straw man that they imagined in their youth.
We are a bizarre species.