Fallacy Friday: The Straw Man

The infamous Straw man is a common fallacy seen in politics, littering TV in attack ads around elections. The fallacy rests on misrepresenting an opponent’s argument and then attacking the misrepresentation. In logical construction, straw man arguments are fallacious because they have not refuted the proposition, only replaced it. For example, a politician characterizes a House bill introduced for proposed budget cuts in military spending as “An unpatriotic bill that threatens national security and endangers the lives of members of the armed services through deprivation.” In its common forms, straw man arguments oversimplify a proposition to circumvent the burden of actually creating a well-constructed argument or they quote a source devoid of context to distort the source’s position in what is called contextomy. Of course, the straw man is only successful if appealing to an uninformed audience. While crafting a straw man is an easy way to sway an audience, Phi Kappans should always strive to listen and give opponents the credit they deserve while pushing to create an airtight, logical argument. If you are not confident about a speaker’s point, ask a question to clarify before assuming. We are at our best when we handily destroy someone’s logic, not men made of hay.