We see straw man arguments around here all the time, but the outcome of those is generally no more than some commentary.
Have people with massive amounts of influence successfully employed straw man arguments to move events? I’m thinking of emperors and dictators and presidents, but who knows, maybe religious figures or Rupert Murdoch types have employed yet more effective straw men.
By ‘effective’ I mean that the results caused the most change in the world or in people’s lives. Say Mount Rushmore got built as a result of a straw man argument- that’s a pretty big effect. How many lives would have to be changed to amount to a bigger effect? I don’t know, it isn’t a perfect system, I am kind of hoping I’ll know it when I see it.
Or Putin, who’s currently doing the same in Russia, blaming ‘the gays’ for all the problems. Seems to be working so far – it’s successfully distracting the Russian people from the corruption & theft of government funds that is going on there.
The best example I can come up with was the typical response to anyone who pointed out that OBL’s terrorist attacks weren’t driven by a hatred of our freedom, but resentment over our involvement in Middle Eastern affairs and that perhaps it would be wise for us to reevaluate our involvement in the region. To which the overwhelming response (from Democrats and Republicans) was along the lines of: “How dare you suggest we let the terrorists dictate our foreign policy. You might think it’s a good idea to institute Sharia Law, but I think freedom is pretty nifty.”
Yeah, Crawlspace is right, I think. He gives a good example, but not a definition.
Straw man argument:
Party A: Makes a statement or comment containing (explicitly or implicitly) some argument.
Party B: Wishes to refute A’s argument. Party B (explicitly or implicitly) re-states or re-interprets A’s argument, changing it to become a different argument, then responds to that different argument, and then claims to have refuted A’s original argument. B’s argument is then the “straw man” fallacy.
In Crawlspace’s example:
Party A says: In light of OBL’s activities, we should re-evaluate our foreign policy.
Party B responds: Party A suggests we should have Sharia Law here [which was not at all what Party A actually said]. That will limit our freedom, but I argue that freedom nifty [thus responding to A’s alleged argument, not A’s actual argument].
Party B has made the straw man argument.
This is a very popular mis-argument form, seen routinely in propaganda of all sorts. Just watch certain ideological “news” broadcasts and you’ll see a lot of this.
Any liberal: Makes any liberal or progressive suggestion.
Imho sureit is a strawman argument in the strict definition, but I would say the debate between Marxism and bourgeois capitalism may fit. Much of Marx’ work is based on a fallacious (or, at least, not shared by modern economics) view of how capitalism operates, and the states and constitutional structures which Marx’ followers developed were based on that. Until the 1980s, about a third of humanity was living in countries whose societies were based on these ideas.
Marx was not attacking someone else’s more accurate understanding of how capitalism works, however. He was criticizing the thing itself, capitalism. Furthermore, if we today have a better understanding of how capitalism works than Marx had, that is largely thanks to Marx, who greatly advanced our understanding, and to subsequent critiques of his ideas about it, which advanced understanding further. No straw man is involved in any of this. It is actually the normal process of the advance of human understanding.
Now, if a vulgar Marxist today were to criticize pro-capitalist arguments of today by simply repeating Marx’s original critique as if modern capitalist economists still hold the views prevalent in the early 19th century, then some sort of fallacy (I am not sure it would be a straw man) would no-doubt be being committed. Marx himself, however, can hardly be blamed for not taking into account arguments and theories that did not yet exist in his day, and that, in fact, were largely developed in response to his own ideas.
Furthermore, in reality, contemporary Marxist inspired critiques of capitalism have moved on from Marx’s original arguments, and have attempted to take into account the more sophisticated defenses of capitalism that have developed since Marx’s time. Whether they succeed or not is another matter, but they are not generally committing the straw man fallacy of attacking modern pro-capitalists by falsely attributing to them the views of pre-Marxian pro-capitalists.
In fact, if anyone is committing a straw man fallacy here it is you, by attacking Marx and Marxists for making arguments that they do not make, and in Marx’s own case, could not have made.
And nothing at all follows from any of this about the relative merits or otherwise of communism versus capitalism as economic systems.
That may be true, but it is quite immaterial to the point I was making. I fully concede that pro-capitalist economic theories benefitted from Marxist critique of capitalism, but I was talking about anti-capitalist theories based on Marx and developed from his thinking along pedigrees different from the capitalist economics you’re talking about.
I’m neither talking predominantly about the historical Karl Marx, nor about the contemporary Marxists of today. All I’m saying is that the theoretical underpinning of the Marxist societies which were prevalent until the end of the Cold War were based on an understanding of the working of capitalism which, for all we know, is based on false premises. Many of these premises were develped by Marx himself, and it is of course true that you can’t really blame Marx for that - not only because he had no access to insights developed later on, but more importantly because Marx himself never made any attempts at constructing a different society. That was done by others after him, who not only differed from him in their society-building efforts but also in further refining theoretical concepts developed first by Marx. My point was not to attack Marx himself but to the way pre-1989 socialist societies attempted to theoretically conceptualise capitalism and justify socialism.
We could play ping pong with accusations of strawman arguments here, since I do not believe I made the type of arguments against Marx and Marxism that I think you accuse me of, but it wouldn’t be of any help here. All I’m saying is that much of Marxist (not necessarily Marx’!) critique of capitalism was based on an understanding of capitalism which, judging from more advanced insights which may not necessarily be objectively true but are the best thing we have available to judge by, are wrong. That’s all I’m saying.
The logic’s fine (I think), but I’m not sure it works as an actual-factual historical straw man as the OP wants.
Those that supported the wars would not doubt argue that a straw man has been made of their position here; and that what they actually meant was, that to do something only because a terrorist has demanded that you do it, impacts on our freedom.
Another example for something at least closely resembling a strawman argument with considerable historical impact is the question whether the doctrine of Trinity amounts to polytheism. Christianity considers itself a monotheistic religion, but many Muslim theologians interpret the doctrine of Trinity as a polytheistic position.
Of course this is not the origin or the primary reason for the conflicts between the two religions, but it may have contributed to making the gap between them less bridgable and fuelled hostilities throughout the centuries.
But that is not to identify a straw man argument (or indeed, any other sort of fallacy); it is just saying that (in your opinion) he was wrong, because he was working with inadequate information (and/or responding to inadequate earlier theories) about the actual nature of capitalism. People working from inadequate information (which most of us have to do most of the time if we are to achieve anything) come to wrong conclusions all the time without necessarily committing any fallacies at all. The straw man fallacy involves misrepresenting someone else’s argument, and presenting your critique of the misrepresentation as a critique of their actual argument. You have made no case whatsoever that Marx (or any Marxist) ever did that.* On the other hand, by falsely accusing him of doing so, and using that as a reason to reject his views in general, you are very clearly committing a straw man against Marx.
If your post was meant to say what you say it was, it was irrelevant to the thread. If it was what it appeared to be, it was an incoherent attack on Marx for a logical sin he did not commit, apparently based on a general ideological dislike (but little understanding) of Communism. (Not an uncommon condition for Americans. And if you you are not American, well I apologize, but you should all the more know better.)
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*I do not say that neither Marx nor any other Marxist ever committed a straw man fallacy. It is quite an easy thing for a polemicist to do by accident, and tempting enough to do on purpose sometimes that many arguers are probably occasionally seduced into it. However, Schnitte has made no case that Marx or Marxists have actually done so, and has certainly not the made the case that he seemed to be trying to make, that Marx’s whole theory is based on a fallacy.
A strawman fallacy isn’t blaming a group for the actions of a few. It is imputing an argument to your opponent that he never actually made, but is much harder to defend.
Person A: I support a 3 day waiting period for handgun purchase.
Person B: I oppose a 3 day waiting period because private gun ownership is an important protection against tyranny.
Person B set up a strawman argument because Person A wasn’t debating private gun ownership in general, but simply the 3 day waiting period. Person B is hoping that Person A now has to defend the much harder position of banning private ownership of guns instead of the easier position, and the position actually advocated, of the 3 day waiting period.
George W Bush said these things:
Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day.
Some say that if you’re Muslim you can’t be free.
There’s some in America who say, “Well, this can’t be true there are still people willing to attack.”
There are some really decent people who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care …for all people.
“Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world,” he said this month in India, talking about the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. “I strongly disagree.” They were all straw man arguments as nobody in public life had ever claimed anything like that. Some were more effective than others of course. I would say that the one’s made in reference to Iraq (along with Freedom Fries and the like) were more effective than the remainder, but frankly that’s a matter for GD.