The Straw Man's Foundation
How do you build a straw man? Well, you start with a solid foundation. Oh, wait, oops, I mean you start without a solid foundation. I forgot, I was building a straw man!
The Straw Man
A straw man is an opposing argument that misrepresents an opposing argument. It’s when you wish to disagree with something, but you really want to win your argument, so what you do is you set up an argument that isn’t their argument, and knock that down.
There are lots of ways to do this, lots of tricks you can use. But my claim in this article is that the best, most effective way to build yourself a straw man is with the foundation of any argument… the definition.
Twisting and Turning
The most obvious way of dealing with the opponents definition when building a straw man is to contort it. To change it in some way to make it easier to argue against. A little equivocation here, a little bit of missing premises there… and pretty soon you have something easy to knock down.
The Absence of Evidence
But I would like to propose that there is an even better foundation for a straw man: the lack of definition. Just jump straight into arguing without ever defining what you are arguing against, let alone quote a real definition from your opponent. This will do two things:
It will make your opponents sound like the kind of people who can’t even define their terms. Want to argue against Christian Nationalism? Well start by implying that there is no definition of the thing.
It will allow your argument to continue unchecked, because there won’t be that pesky definition thing there to show what you are arguing against. Or to make people wonder ‘Is that really the definition?”.
Introduction and Conclusion
This article was inspired by a very brief exchange I had with Incogito. I said that a lack of a definition was the very first thing I looked for in a straw man. (“My first fact check for a strawman.) He said that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.
To which I replied, “Sex assigned at birth”, which I think should at least be the runner up.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von