The Straw Man Fallacy

    The Straw Man Fallacy

    “Two friends, Luigi and Giovanni, are staying
    strolling on the sidewalk when suddenly a child rushes in
    road and almost causes a serious accident; at this point John says:

    - I think children shouldn't
    run freely through the busy streets.
    Luigi who is perhaps not in a good mood, is not
    agrees with this idea and replies:
    - I think it would be stupid to lock up
    the children at home all day. "
    A
    this point could start a meaningless discussion when it really does
    what happened is that Luigi drew a wrong conclusion. That is, John does not
    he meant that children should be locked up, but rather than these
    they should play inside protected spaces where they are not in danger e
    where someone can control them. The example
    reported is very simple but in everyday life we ​​tend to
    use this kind of thinking to dismantle the arguments of the other and to
    confuse him, especially in the discussions that take place within the couple.
    Or maybe, at times, we ourselves have been subjected to this kind of
    generalization. In
    psychology this form of countering the arguments of others is called "straw man argument". This
    curious definition comes from the military environment, when in the past they were used
    straw puppets to train soldiers to fight, and of course these
    puppets were easy to take down. In the
    interpersonal relationships this type of argument tends to create a
    false position that later on it will be easy to knock down, thus winning the opponent.
    However, this is not an effective way to resolve conflicts, much less to arrive at assertive solutions, since what we are doing is only
    to counter with a completely fictitious argument, a generalization
    inadequate or, if you like, a bad interpretation. Of course, almost always
    this "straw man" is a much simpler and easier to counter version
    with respect to the attitude of others. For
    example, one person states that “abortion
    it is a crime against life ”, while another replies that“ if all the supported rules are supported
    then the use of condoms should also be prohibited by the Catholic Church ”.
    Perhaps the first interlocutor was referring only to abortion and who knows, maybe
    he is not even a believer, and only affirmed something that was dictated to him by
    conscience, but shifting the conversation to the level of Catholic intransigence
    the second interlocutor could be allowed to win the discussion unless… we are
    pay attention to the arguments that the other person puts forward and we are capable of making them
    notice that he is making an incorrect generalization with respect to ours
    words. In fact, pointing out the mistake in an assertive manner is the way over
    effective to counter this strategy. For
    as for those who use "the straw man" as a technique to win
    in discussions, they need to know that what matters in a debate is not who
    wins or loses but rather that both come out enriched by new ideas
    and points of view. Also, normally when in discussions it applies
    this technique is only achieved by losing the initial thread of the conversation by digressing
    towards other collateral themes.
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