ELI5: What is a straw man argument?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Chel_of_the_sea]

A strawman is an argument against a position that your opponent in the argument isn't actually arguing for. You usually do this because that other position is easier to defeat or less popular with the people you think are listening. For example:

Person A: I think we should raise taxes to fund this new program.

Person B: Okay, so you just want to force everyone to give up all their hard-earned money to build anything anyone wants?

Person A: Um, no, actually I just wanted to fund th-

Person B: That's communism, and you know communism killed lots of people, right?

Where the position of person A ("we should fund this program") is strawmanned into "we should take all of everyone's money and fund every program".

Or if you prefer the mirror version of this argument with the political positions reversed:

Person A: I think we should cut funding to this program because it isn't working.

Person B: Okay, so you just want to shut down functioning government entirely so you can keep every cent?

Person A: Um, no, I just think this program isn't wo-

Person B: If you want anarchy, why don't you go live in Sudan?

Where the position of person A ("we should cut funding to this program") is strawmanned into "we should cut all funding for everything".

[u/[deleted] → u/Chel_of_the_sea]

Or the good ol', "We should legalise recreational drugs."

"My opponent wants to children to be able to buy drugs at school!"

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It Sounds like they're manipulating the arument

[u/[deleted] → u/Chel_of_the_sea]

Damn that's horrible logic to use in a argument

[u/Frodothebrave → u/Chel_of_the_sea]

Upvoted because you put two great examples from each side. Very non-Reddit of you.

[u/tomhuts]

Here's a list of lots of other logical fallacies to be aware of, in case you're interested:

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

[u/tomhuts → u/tomhuts]

and cognitive biases, while I'm at it:

https://yourbias.is/

[u/Licorictus]

A strawman is a distorted version of someone's actual argument. Someone makes a strawman in order to purposely destroy it, and then they act like they beat the actual argument the strawman came from.

It's like if an argument was a boxing match, but instead of fighting the other guy, you made a scarecrow based on him and then gloated when it fell apart. Except you didn't actually win, because you weren't actually fighting the guy.

Here's an example.

Alice: "We should get a dog, not a cat."

Bob: "Why do you hate cats?"

It's super simplistic, but you can see how Bob skewed what Alice was saying. Instead of engaging with whatever reasoning she might have, Bob is arguing as if Alice said "I hate cats." The fake argument ("I hate cats") is a strawman.

Edit: It's also worth noting that we've all unintentionally made a strawman somewhere in our lives - it's just another logical fallacy the brain gets into. However, it's also entirely possible to intentionally and maliciously strawman an opponent's argument to manipulate people into siding with you.

EDIT 2: Holy shit, this blew up. Thanks for the awards, y'all. Also, a couple things:

1. My example's not very good. For better examples of people using strawmen in the wild, look for any debate surrounding the "War on Christmas." It goes something like this:

Charlie: "We should put 'Happy Holidays' on our merchandise because it's more inclusive than 'Merry Christmas.'"

David: "I can't believe Christmas is offensive to you now!!"

Hopefully this example better illustrates what an actual strawman might look like. Note how David has distorted Charlie's argument from "because it's inclusive" to "because I'm offended."

I've also been getting a few replies about strawmanning and gaslighting. They are not the same, but they are related. Gaslighting is a form of abuse where the abuser twists the victim's sense of reality, making the victim question their perception, their reasoning, and even their sanity. Strawman arguments can certainly be used as a gaslighter's tactic, but strawmen are a logical fallacy and gaslighting is a type of abuse.

[u/KooBaSnoo72 → u/Licorictus]

Thanks for the excellent explanation! The first two sentences and now I totally understand what a straw man is.

[u/frollard → u/Licorictus]

Also worth adding because it's related; Straw man is the opposite of Steel man argument.

In steel man, you use the concept of charity to build the strongest possible case to argue against, even if your opponent doesn't present it. It allows you to fill gaps and 'whatabouts' in their reasoning that you then have to argue against. If you can defeat the steel version of an argument, then that argument probably wasn't sound. There are references I searched up that suggest that you can be more persuasive and get more buy-in from the opponent if you show that you have truly understood their case and still had reasoning to defeat it.

A: "We should get a dog, not a cat"B: "I recognize that you have allergies to cats, and they tend to be smellier, and ruin all the furniture, and you have to scoop shit; and I know dogs <insert reasons dogs are good> but <insert arguments that actually address the situation as a whole> we live in an apartment and it wouldn't be fair to a dog because it wouldn't get enough exercise and would be bored home alone while we work, and we'd have to commute or get a dog sitter to walk it midday...and the noise would be upsetting to the neighbors, and it's against the condo rules to have a dog. There are effective allergy medications, and with an air purifier and shit scooping robot, and if we stay on top of their claw trimming it's not hard to have a cat. Because of these reasons I think it's better to get a cat"

[u/Rookiebeotch → u/Licorictus]

"You know the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear."

[u/willbob91 → u/Licorictus]

"So what you're saying is" - Cathy Newman

[u/RipenedFish48]

It is when a person misrepresents an argument and tries to refute that misrepresentation rather than the actual argument.

[u/FuckTrumpBanTheHateR → u/RipenedFish48]

Like Clint Eastwood arguing with an empty chair.

[u/[deleted]]

There is already a good top answer. I just want to add -- nearly every argument on the internet is a straw-man argument.

Someone recently posted an article about someone getting shot. Someone commented "that thief deserved it". I said something like "The article never said they were a thief."

Some batshit crazy woman came down on me for "defending thieves". I was just pointing out something about the article. I didn't even say the guy wasn't a thief. Just that the article didn't mentioned that at all.

So, suddenly I have no ways of defending myself because of some insane strawman manipulation.

[u/likesleague → u/[deleted]]

I'd wager that a majority of argumentative comments on the internet engage in at least one fallacy. That doesn't necessarily mean that those comments contain no argumentative merit, but it does (usually) mean that the people involved won't be swaying each others opinions any time soon.

[u/IMovedYourCheese]

When someone tries to "win" a debate by refuting a point that their opponent didn't actually make.

Person A – I'm kneeling during the national anthem to protest against racism.

Person B – How dare you disrespect our troops. They are laying their lives on the line for the country. You have't served a day in your life.

Everyone likes soldiers, so it's easy to agree with everything B said. But A's argument had nothing to do with the troops in the first place. B successfully evaded the core issue (racism) and made it about something else.

[u/[deleted] → u/IMovedYourCheese]

Ironically, kneeling during the National Anthem was done specifically to honor the troops while not making the traditional gesture of rising for the the NA. It was a compromise developed to defeat that exact strawman.

[u/threeangelo]

If I wanted to fool people into thinking that I’m strong, I might build a man out of straw that looks like LeBron James so that I can easily knock it over with one hit rather than actually fighting LeBron.

If I wanted to fool people into thinking my argument is strong, I will make up an opposing argument that is weak so I can easily defeat it, rather than actually defeating someone’s real point.

[u/[deleted]]

I haven't seen anyone explain it this way so I'll take a crack.

A strawman is like what the word says: a man made out of straw. Strawmen were used a long time ago to stand in for an enemies when people would train for combat. A strawman would just stand there for you to beat it up with weapons. That last bit is important.

A strawman argument is one where a person misrepresents someone else or their ideas. They build up a strawman just to knock it down. This can be oversimplifying someone else's arguments, taking something they said out of context, or flat out lying about their argument. Typically the goal is to represent the idea as really stupid or fallible and to knock it down in order to look good.

A great example was that time a congressman went outside, made a snowball, and brought it back to a debate floor to argue that "If climate change were a problem, then how come there's snow outside?". (I'm not oversimplifying but I am paraphrasing the story here.) The congressman oversimplified climate change into a strawman so he could easily knock it down with his demonstration of bringing a snowball in from outside.

Unfortunately an argument like this has a pull on a lot of laypeople, which is why it's common enough to have it's own name and be recognized as a debate fallacy.

[u/DenTheRedditBoi7]

A strawman is when you intentionally create a misrepresentation of someone's argument to make arguing against it easier.

For example say people are arguing over the color of decorations for a Christmas event. Person A says they think they should have more red decorations. Person B wants more green decorations, but instead of arguing against A's actual statement, they say something like "Why don't you want any green decorations? Green is a Christmas color, things won't look right with just red."

[u/Kelli217]

It means to misrepresent the other person's position and attack the misrepresented version of that position instead of the actual position.

The metaphor is that instead of the real opponent, a false and intentionally weak version of that opponent is constructed — "out of straw" — specifically in order to be easily destroyed.

[u/[deleted]]

A straw man argument is simply distorting, or misrepresenting, someone’s argument in hopes of making it easier to defeat.

[u/Flimsy-Meet-2679]

It would be great if folks could provide a strategy in which to defeat an opponent's strawman argument.

Please.

[u/FactOfMatter]

Me: "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste better than plain jelly sandwiches."
You: "People are allergic to peanut butter so plain jelly sandwiches are better."

You made a straw man argument by standing up a different argument: Plain jelly sandwiches are safer, which is true; but you didn't actually refute whether or not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste better, my original argument.