Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
According to the most easily-reached reference material, it is this…
A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man.”
The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent’s proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., “stand up a straw man”) and the subsequent refutation of that false argument (“knock down a straw man”) instead of the opponent’s proposition.
In practice, however — the situations as they exist when the term is actually used — we see the meaning is distributed among three:
1. Your opponent is “attacking a straw man” by stating your position inaccurately so he can make an entirely illegitimate & irrelevant rebuttal, on his part, look like a proper one.
2. Your opponent is calling out a cause-and-effect relationship you cannot, or will not, acknowledge or see. “Straw man! I never said cause a huge explosion, I merely suggested using this cigarette lighter to see if the gas tank is empty.” “Straw man! I didn’t say kill the puppy, I just suggested throwing it off this cliff.”
3. Your opponent has accurately and concisely articulated why your idea is flawed, and you, embarrassed, seek to go back and re-litigate that part of the discussion where you already had your chance to define your idea.
Only the first one of these three coincides with the meaning given in the reference material. And that’s the only legitimate use.
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Is this Chapter One of The Zachriel Weltanschauung? Because 2 and 3 seem to have been among their very favoritest “debate” tactics.
PS I loved Nightfly’s method of dealing with so-called “straw men” — blowing the whistle and assigning them time in the penalty box. “TWEEEEET! Two minutes for attempting to re-litigate the premise.”
PPS Y’all know I think “Game” is 75% spergy bullshit, but all three uses of “straw man” are encompassed by what Vox Day calls the “Gamma Tell:” “you seem to be saying that ____” (or “so you’re saying that ___” or any variant thereof). Since the Gamma Male is, by definition, a Secret King who can never be wrong, “straw man” (or whatever) is really their only “debate” tactic. In fact, I’d go so far as to call a “straw man” (any variant) a special case of Appeal to Authority — in this case, the unimpeachable Authority of the Secret King (he knows what you’re saying better than you do).
- Severian | 05/13/2018 @ 07:53[…] back, it’s tailor-made for the Liberal “debate” style. As Morgan demonstrates here, when Liberals are caught in a contradiction, they don’t concede the point. They […]
- Why I’m Not a Liberal, Part III | Rotten Chestnuts | 05/14/2018 @ 01:19Heh. Whistling down the logical fallacies was fun. Your reference to “Gamma Tell” actually reminds me of something else – a clip from How It Should Have Ended’s video of Frozen, where the head troll is trying to explain Elsa’s powers to her parents:
Stop saying “SOOOOOOO!” Every time you say that you say the wrong thing!
(I know you don’t do video but this is just three minutes long and is quite funny to boot, even if Disney made them take down the original because of the music.)
If there’s any way to get around some of these mental blocks, it’s often through little clips of stuff like this. The humor helps – being able to laugh alongside somebody forms a connection and helps humanize. If the creator is “one of us” they may express surprise that you enjoy the creation, which sometimes begins to turn wheels – maybe fun and entertainment and social interactions don’t require constant Goodthink? And it’s short, and not really about A Topic, so one avoids entrenched positions.
All of this is why the more strident Gatekeepers insist on ALL CULTURE WAR ALWAYS and NO FUN ALLOWED and especially the purity of the ranks. It makes their content utter shite in the end, and that becomes a useful shibboleth – if they don’t notice (except to approve) then they were never really much interested in the content at all, it was all just a pretext to poison people through something they loved… and ruining things other people genuinely enjoy is a bonus to a spiteful mind, so win-win I suppose. Those who do notice and protest this are people who can be reached.
- nightfly | 05/14/2018 @ 14:40