Straw Man and Hyperbole: Real Reasons Why We Can’t Have Real Arguments

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When people argue one of the biggest reasons they can’t even begin to reason is because we reduce our opponents to madmen. Sure there are extremists, but honestly most people aren’t crazy. The average person isn’t unwilling to listen to reason. However how can we expect to ever have a real discussion if we build each other up into monsters?

I try to listen to multiple venues with regard to current events. I normally try to hear opinions from all sides. And what’s funny is how each side talks about their opponents. They build them up to me something that they aren’t, and this is a major obstacle when it comes to rational discussion. All people are guilty of making assumptions about others we don’t know or understand. We build our opponents into huge caricatures of what they actually are because it makes it easier to belittle them or to disagree. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Straw Man (see here)  is a form of argument where the arguer ignores the actual points from their opponent and builds them up as something they are not in order to make them easier to attack.

Lets look at how most people on the right view liberals.

Liberals

All Liberals are elitist, stuck up, tree hugging, over taxing, over spending, free loving, Godless, socialist, communist, gun hating, wealth redistributing, business hating, welfare sucking, hippies who don’t know how to protect the country from foreign invaders and do nothing but lie.

And now lets look at how Conservatives are viewed by the left.

Conservatives

All Conservatives are racist, anti-government, 99^th percentile, pro big business, homophobic, gun crazy, bible thumping, sexist, isolationist, fascist, pro life, anti art, anti higher education, anti social programs, war hungry, ethnocentric, intolerant, rednecks who do nothing but lie.

Personally I found that most people are in between on the issues. Most aren’t hole hog, one way or the other.

One of the strangest things is that somehow there are several things that are inconsistent. Liberals are somehow both elitist and on welfare at the same time. And Conservatives are also somehow both rednecks and part of the 99^th percent of richest Americans. What’s also funny is that both parties claim to represent the people. Both claim that the other only represents the rich. Both claim that the other side is hypocritical and out of touch.

But the truth is that these people that we are describing doesn’t really represent the vast majority of people. At the end of the day we are all just people, and not these stereotypes. Sure there are extremists. But, that isn’t the norm, and when we enter a discussion we need to keep that in mind.

“Oh you support gun control? You must wanna burn the 2nd amendment you hippe!” —- “Oh so you’re against gun control? You probably pass out pistols to children you warmonger!”

What’s really upsetting is that this tactic isn’t just common it actually works on many people. Too many of us don’t want to do research on what the other side is actually saying so we accept what we are told by people who we know agree with. When it comes to sensitive issues we have a tendency to become hyperbolic. I can’t tell you how many nonsensical memes and jokes that people have posted relating to politics. Now maybe the original author was purposefully hyperbolic but many who read these things as the spread over the Internet take them as fact. Look at the number of people who believed rumors started about President Obama (Click Here). 

The problem is that when people begin looking at issues this way we are no longer trying to fix a shared problem. We are trying to defeat our opponent who disagrees with us. And that gets us nowhere. People don’t like to be wrong so when you come at them aggressively, you only push your detractor further away from your perspective. I’m not going to go into it again but I wrote a whole blog about it. (See here). That is why blowing up our opponent does noting but hobble our progress as a country.

Even if you have all the facts in the world on your side, if you disagree with someone and make them into a monster you will never try to bring them to your line of thinking. And if you aren’t convincing someone of anything then what are you doing really? You’re just wasting your time.

I work with children, and when they get into an argument, most tell them to work it out with a compromise. What sort of message do we send our children when we act no better than they do? I’ve got friends who are republican, democrat, Green party, and one Libertarian. The honest fact is that when you get to know people as people, you find that we aren’t as different as we make each other out to be. While we may have differing opinions, remember that we’re part of the same country. And in the end we both just want what’s best for it.

Thanks for reading.