Debates and arguments are part of any social structure but WhatsApp may be the worst place to have a debate!
Then again the worst thing which can happen is when the opponent uses the STRAWMAN FALLACY!
Now the term may sound very technical but it is a response many have felt in their time!
A straw man fallacy happens when someone changes or exaggerates an opponent’s argument to make it easier to attack.
This is essentially a trick where a speaker ignores the real point and fights a fake, weaker version instead!
It comes from making a flimsy figure out of straw that is simple to knock over, unlike a real fighter!
So this is how it works; Person A makes a claim. Person B twists it into an extreme claim, refutes the twist, and acts like they won!
A common example can be the twist to this original statement “I think our school should spend more money on art and music classes.”
The Straw Man here would say, “So you want to defund the science and math programs and ruin our students’ futures?”
Or if the Original is “We should regulate carbon emissions to help protect the environment.”
The Straw Man version is “You want to shut down all factories and force everyone to live in the dark ages.”
Now people use it for easy wins and it feels satisfying to defeat an extreme version of a point!
It also acts as a distraction and shifts attention away from hard facts and real issues! Also it takes less effort to mock a fake claim than to answer a real one!
The term “straw man” comes from the physical concept of a dummy or scarecrow made of straw, built as a fake opponent that is very easy to knock down!
In fact it was part of a fake testimony history!
The expression “Man of straw” dates back to the 1620s to describe an imaginary, weak, or sham person. It historically referred to men who wore straw in their shoes to signal they were willing to give fake testimony in court!
The figurative use in arguments—where a debater beats up an easy-to-defeat “man of straw”—appeared in print by the late 19th century (such as in university periodicals from the 1870s), though the formal naming and theorizing of the informal fallacy expanded significantly in mid-20th-century logic texts!
It is commonly used in political debates and even when many TRP hungry reporters use such deviations for sound bites and views!
If you become popular once day and announce that, “I love mangoes!”
Your opponent or competitor may announce that, “Look at him! He hates oranges!”
That is the straw man fallacy! It’s of course no fallacy or even Man for that matter that Sukumari was an amazing artist!
Subh ratri…
