Straw Man
Also: Don’t Put Words in My Mouth, Hollow Man
Class: Distort
Pretending the other person said or
means something different and absurd.
Instead of attacking the real issue, creating a practice dummy made of straw, which is much easier to attack.
I think caging chickens and pigs is cruel and should be outlawed.
So you want everyone to be vegetarians because you think animals are more important than people?
You know that’s not what I said. Try again.
The league gives out participation trophies.
So they think everyone should get what they want even if they don’t deserve it?
Everyone should be hired on merit, not DEI.
So you’re denying there’s any racism and sexism?
No, I just think DEI causes more problems than it solves.
They want to take our guns!
Who?
The liberals!
Which liberals?
All of them!
No one has proposed anything that extreme. You’re making up a boogeyman.
Tip: A common clue is “So what you’re saying is....”
Straw Man arguments usually are exaggerated and oversimplified, or a wild accusation, or inventing an imaginary opponent “they” instead of anyone specific.
Show Politics
Foolacy vs. Fallacy
This matches the Straw Man fallacy: misrepresenting what someone stated.
More loosely it includes any
wild accusation of their goals and hidden motives, since you can’t tell the difference at face value without further research. e.g. “They want to ban puppies” could be a misrepresentation of something actually said or a completely made-up accusation.
This also includes
Hollow Man: inventing an imaginary opponent “they”.
I considered renaming this “Practice Dummy” because most people don’t know what a real straw man is. But I kept Straw Man because many people already know and use this term, and it’s very easy to illustrate. The etymology is uncertain, but it makes most sense as a military target dummy for bayonet training.