Straw man Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
A straw man or man of straw is, in its literal sense, a dummy in the shape of a man created by stuffing straw into clothes or some other container. Straw men have been used as scarecrows, combat-training targets, or effigies to be burned. This led to a long history of metaphoric and rhetorical uses to refer a person or thing that is weak or ineffective, especially if it was created specifically to be weak.In the sport of rodeo, the straw man is a dummy made of a shirt and pants stuffed with straw, traditionally propped up with a broom. The straw man is placed in the arena during bullriding events as a safety measure. It is intended to distract the bull after the rider has dismounted (or has been thrown), with the idea that the bull will attack the straw man rather than attack its former rider. Two so-called rodeo clowns--people dressed in bright colors whose job it is to distract the bull if the rider is injured--are in the ring as well and are usually far more effective than the straw man.
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2 Decision making 3 Straw man in law 4 In literature |
The straw-man rhetorical technique (sometimes called straw person) is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than one's opponents actually offer. It is not a logical fallacy to disprove a weak argument. Rather, this fallacy lies in declaring one argument's conclusion to be wrong because of flaws in another argument.
One can set up a straw man in several different ways:
Rhetorical use
For example, one might argue "Charles Darwin believed in Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, which has now been discredited. Therefore, Darwinian evolution by natural selection did not occur." This is a fallacy because the Lamarckian ideas were only a small part of the overall theory; the fact that he was wrong about them does not affect the theory as a whole.
Some logic textbooks define the straw-man fallacy only as a misrepresented argument. It is now common, however, to use the term to refer to all of these tactics. The straw-man technique is also a type of media manipulation.
Often, the straw-man setup is a weaker argument because it makes an unjustifiably wide or strong claim. For example:
- Fred: "Poverty is one factor that causes crime".
- Alice: "You're wrong to claim that all poor people are criminals. My friend Jack is poor, but he is not a criminal!".
- Fred: "Poverty is one factor that causes crime."
- Alice: "Yes, but I believe you over-emphasize that factor and should consider others."
- Fred: "You are creating a straw man by claiming that I ever called all poor people criminals!"
External links
Decision making
A "straw-man proposal" is a simple draft proposal intended to generate discussion of its disadvantages and to provoke the generation of new and better proposals. As the document is revised, it may be given other edition names, i.e. "stone-man", "iron-man", etc.
The term straw man can refer to a third party that acts as a "front" in a transaction (i.e., who is an agent for another) for the purpose of taking title to real property or some other kind of transaction where the principal remains hidden or to do something else which is not allowed. A straw man is also "a person of no means," or one who deliberately accepts a liability or other monetary responsibility without the resources to fulfill it, usually to shield another party.
At one time, men of straw were men that could be found in the courts who placed a piece of straw in their shoes (also called straw-shoes). Jurists knew that these men of straw were available to testify for a price, and they would be asked leading questions: Don't you remember that you saw him at the market at the time of the murder?'\' And the straw-shoe's rejoinder would be: yes.'' Then the straw-shoes would perjure himself for a price in court, just as the jurist had so cleverly (but fraudulently) suggested.
Heinrich Mann's Man of Straw (1918) is the first book in his Das Kaisereich trilogy and an unremitting critique of Wilhelmine Germany at the turn of the Twentieth Century. It portrays the life of a man, Diederich Hessling, a fanatic admirer of Emperor Wilhelm II, who becomes a straw man for authority and the existing order. Throughout the story, Diederich's inflexible ideals are often contradicted by his actions: he preaches bravery but is a coward; he is the strongest proponent of the military but seeks early relief from service; his greatest political opponents are the revolutionary Social-Democrats, yet he uses his influence to help send his hometown’s SPD candidate to the Reichstag so as to defeat his Liberal competitors in business; he starts vicious rumours against the latter and then dissociates himself from these; he preaches and enforces Christian virtues upon others but lies, cheats and regularly commits infidelity.
Diederich’s ideals: blood and iron, and the might of opulent power are exposed as hollowness and weakness. Diederich Hessling, the informer child (and later adult), the Neo-Teuton, the Doctor of chemistry, the paper manufacturer, and eventually the most influential man in town, is a critical allegory depicting German society’s increasing susceptibility to chauvinism, jingoism, ultra-nationalism, anti-Semitism and proto-fascism. His character is often juxtaposed, in both words and appearance to another man of straw, the Emperor, Prince Wilhelm II. 'It almost seems to me. You look so very much like - His ...'
Man of Straw. Penguin Books, London, 1984, c1918. (ISBN 0140065849) This is an Article on Straw man. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Straw man Straw man in law
In literature