Straw Man

By Yiler Huang

The Straw Man fallacy is the situation in which a person intentionally exaggerates or distorts another person’s statement in order to argue against them. This fallacy is often used in arguments because it can be effective when deployed successfully. This is because a person is essentially using another person’s argument against them by distorting or exaggerating it, or accuse you for saying something you did't meant or say.

There are a few ways to “create” a straw man in arguments. One way is to distort a person’s argument, which means alter what they said and use it against them. Another way is to exaggerate their argument, which means focusing on a small detail in their argument and making it sound more serious or important than it actually is. This is also where the metaphor “straw man” rooted from, as you are creating a fabricated image of the person you are arguing with when you are using this argument.

A few years ago I told my dad to stop smoking, and I told him it smelt bad and it was bad for him. However, he said that smoking relieves his stress and by telling him to stop I intended to make him stressed. This is a case of straw man fallacy because he altered my argument to argue against me.

Because this fallacy is often used, it is important to not fall into it by identifying it when it happens. One way to identify it is to see if the person you are arguing with is stating a valid argument or they are just repeating what you said in an altered way. It is an important skill to know when a person is using this fallacy against us so we don’t get convinced by invalid arguments easily.