A strawman argument is when you misportray your opponent's position to delegitimize their claim. "My opponent would have you think A, B, or C, when clearly anyone can see it's really D, E, or F." Metaphorically, you're putting a scarecrow or straw man, a misrepresentation of their exact position, up on a pole to be ripped apart and taken down, without giving your opponent a fair chance to state their position on the issue. Straw man is a logical fallacy and a rhetorical technique.

It's basically when someone twists what their opponent said in order to make it easier to argue against like "I dislike when kids scream" and they respond with "Oh so you dislike kids? Well..." And so on.

A strawman argument is basically an exaggerated or perverse (or sometimes entirely made up) version of somebody else’s argument, which makes it easier to then take down. I’m not sure where the name came from, but I imagine a strawman is pretty easy to burn down, so something like that?

So for example if I wanted to argue to lower immigration, I could try and tackle the intricacies and difficulties in a fair way, making points to counter common arguments for increasing immigration. Or I could create a strawman, maybe the idea that people who want higher immigration want to get rid of white people or something. And then argue against the idea of getting rid of white people, which is simpler and easier, but of course nothing to do with the original point.

A straw man argument aims to misrepresent and ridicule the opponents positions. Such as:

• "I think the climate crisis is dangerous, we should build more renewables"

Strawman argument: - "what you want to deforest the landscape and destroy natural habitat to build windmills??"

It's basically taking a small out of context word or phrase and making it seem like the person's entire argument based upon that phrase. Like the proverbial strawman, it's a hollow representation.

For instance let's say we're having an argument over climate change. I say "the data says that in 20 years this planet will be unrecognizably changed by the climate shift if we don't implement policy changes now." If I were to debate that with the intent to make a strawman I'd argue "my opponent is saying the world as we know it will end in 20 years."

While not technically false, I did say the world would be unrecognizable, it misreprents the actual point I made in order to make it easier to oppose.

So Alice and Bob are discussing what is the color of the sky.

Alice says it’s blue, Bob asks why Alice hates red. Bob used a strawman argument because instead of debating Alice’s argument (the sky is blue) he is debating a made up premise (Alice hates red)

> I see it under arguments i thought made sense or were valid, but then the next comment is always like “strawman”

So you’re saying that any time somebody says “strawman”, whatever they’re arguing against is always valid?

That’s completely stupid, because the guy saying “strawman” could just be a troll, or just a guy paid to respond to everything with “strawman.” Anybody who thinks a “strawman” response proves anything is illogical and should feel bad. Really, you should be ashamed of yourself.

…

What I did above was to deliberately misrepresent what you actually said, and then attack the misrepresentation. This both avoids having to address your actual argument, and also gives me something really easy to attack.

It comes from early days of political debates, before television and radio. The politicians would have to go to the voters and gather in town halls or churches to have debates in person. But due to scheduling there would often only be one politician showing up to these meetings. So they would literally build a dummy out of cheap materials, usually straw, to hold the debate. As you might imagine this was kind of silly with one person making up the arguments for both. That usually meant that the strawmans arguments were arguments that was easy to argue against and often quite silly. Usually just a faint resemblance of what the opposing political party actually meant.

You still hear this done today because it is a very effective rhetorical tool. If you are controlling the medium you can make up any silly argument for your opponent to make your side sound more sane and valid.

[removed]

[removed]

First compare it to a steel man argument.

With a steel man argument you make your "opponent's" argument as strong and perfect as possible. You help them make their case... and then you try to show them they're wrong while debating their powerful reasons.

​

With a straw man argument you do the opposite. You take the weakest, least useful part of their argument, pretend it's their whole point, and then show them it's wrong.

"I think you're a terrible boyfriend because you killed your girlfriend, you stole all her money, you set her family on fire and even after fifteen years in jail you still haven't said 'sorry'."

"Oh. So you think people are 'bad' boyfriends just because they don't apologise for every little thing? 'Oh I'm sorry for breathing loudly. Oh I'm sorry for eating three cookies instead of two'. You think a man should be weak and surrender to the woman like a slave? Well I think that's pathetic. And I'm glad to be more manly than that."

[removed]

[removed]

You take someone's argument and turn it into something they didn't actually say, so then you can attack that fictional thing because that is easier than countering what they actually said.

Person A says something simple, like they wish income tax rates were lower.

Person B responds by saying 'oh so you want people to die then because there will be less money for social programs? How you could be such a monster?'

Person B created a strawman out of Person A's simple statement that they wished for lower income taxes and attacked the strawman instead. When the reality might be that person A wants income taxes lowered but for there to be higher corporate taxes and thus no 'people dying from the reduction of social programs.'

Please read this entire message

Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):

Straightforward or factual queries are not allowed on ELI5. ELI5 is meant for simplifying complex concepts.

If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the detailed rules first. If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please use this form and we will review your submission.

Basically an argument where someone responds without actually addressing the core issue. Example:

Person A: I think we should spend less on fuel.

Person B: well that's dumb, because driving is more convenient than walking.

The second argument is a "strawman" because it doesn't actually address whether spending less on fuel is a good idea, but rather redirects to a different topic.

To clarify the metaphor, a literal strawman is a scarecrow or dummy. It's not real. Argumentatively your discursive opponent is setting up fake target to avoid engaging with the real issue you're trying to raise.

I understand it to be a tentative argument for debate. It’s a prototype and needs fleshing out. Or sometimes it’s an argument designed to be provocative and promote thinking along the lines of “well if not that then what?”