The Cunning Linguist: Man of straw, feet of clay

> How to avoid misrepresenting your opponents

Adam Tatelman
Arts Editor

 

f the stereotypes are to be

believed, online forums are
little more than dung-smeared
gladiatorial arenas where the
illiterate masses hurl insults at
one another morning, noon,
and night—not the best place
for an intellectual debate.
But millennials consume
more Internet media than
anyone in history, so tons of
important conversations are
consequently evolving out
there in the blogosphere. In
order to make this new venue
a useful one, it is important for
aspiring keyboard warriors to
understand the fundamentals
of logical argument. Today’s
lesson: the Strawman Fallacy.
Obviously, nobody likes to be
wrong, but arguments don’t
necessarily exist to decide what
is right or wrong. In an academic
setting, arguments are meant to
further collective understanding
of a subject. To do this, people

What is a fandom, anyways?

have to argue both for
and against that subject
without letting their
egos get involved. From
this, it follows that, although
you may prefer your position,
you must be open to criticism
from other perspectives.
Those who do not like being
criticized often misrepresent
their opponents’ claims in order
to more easily refute them. This
is what’s known as the Strawman
Fallacy, so called because it
is similar to beating up ona
straw dummy. The dummy
can't fight back, so you look
like the obvious winner, when
you are not actually fighting
your real opponent. These
arguments are easy to construct,
but also easy to dismantle.
Say you propose the argument
that the government should
increase funding for construction
projects. In response, your
opponent jumps down your
throat, claiming that you must
want to defund social welfare
to accomplish this. That is

a Strawman Fallacy because
you never specified from
where the money was being
repurposed. Your opponent is
trying to divert the argument
to another topic by assigning
opinions to you that don’t

accurately reflect your position.

Dealing with Strawman
arguments is usually a simple
affair. In most cases you only
need to restate your points
and call out your opponent for
being intellectually dishonest.
However, there are those who
think they are adept logicians
but are really just jerking off.

1 like to call them “Master
Debaters.” They will accuse
you of Strawmanning them
the moment you point out the
critical flaw in their reasoning,
even though your observation
was absolutely correct.
Dealing with these people is
difficult because it can lead to
Strawman fights, where both
parties continue accusing one
another of misrepresentation
with no end in sight. The

best way to avoid that is to be
judicious in your use of the
Strawman accusation and

to be cautious not to use it
reflexively when your opponent
really has found a glitch in
your thinking. That just makes
you look like a tosser.

Being humble is one of the
hardest things in the world to
do, especially about our deeply
held beliefs. That’s why logic is
the great equalizer. It doesn’t

> The positive and negatives of fandoms

Lauren Paulsen
Senior Columnist

 

M ost likely you have heard the
term “fandom” before. If you
don’t associate yourself with a fandom,
when you hear the term you probably
think of over-the-top, obsessive fans.
In a way you might be right, true fans
can be somewhat obsessive, but in
reality fandoms are so much more.

Even though the general public
tends to have a negative view towards
fandom—uncertain why those people
are so obsessed with a novel or other
art form—I believe that fandoms
are inherently a positive thing for
people. A fandom is a community.
It provides people with a way to
interact and connect with other
people who have the same interests.

This sense of community and
the feeling of belonging can be very
important to people. I have a friend
from high school who had a tough
time getting along with most people
at school, partly because she was
socially awkward, but also because she
had interests that only a minority at
school shared. She felt more secure in
her fandoms and was able to express
herself better there than she could
at school. I think being part of these
fandoms really helped her through high
school and made her feel better about
herself. Since we’ve graduated, she
has become less shy, and I believe her
fandoms really helped with this too.

A second reason that fandoms can
be positive is that they allow people to
escape real life for a while. It’s socially

acceptable to watch a television program
or read a novel, so why not immerse
yourself in this world with other like-
minded people to help relieve stress?

I know a few other people from high
school that did this because they

had tough situations at home.

Many fans are also very creative. It
is not uncommon for them to think up
their own work, such as fanfiction or art,
in connection with the original canon.
Asa writer, I used to find it difficult to
accept fans using other people’s work
in their own stories, because I thought
that it was lazy. | was adamant that
everything I wrote had to be original.

I now feel ashamed to have been so
narrow-minded. Although I still create
my own worlds and my own characters,
I have come to learn that writing
fanfiction is really an art in itself. When
a fan feels so strongly about a character
or world that they want to make the
character their own, it is a great honour
to the creator. I would feel awed if
anyone wanted to write fanfiction
about any of my characters or worlds.

After having my eyes opened to
the world of fandom, I can really only
come up with one big negative aspect.
This would be when fans immerse
themselves too completely into the
fandom, and their real lives suffer for
it. It’s nice to live in a world of fiction
(heck, I’m a writer! I live there a lot),
but real life needs attention as well.

So when a fan can find a happy
medium between their real life and
fandom(s), then it really is a positive
thing. We have people following sports,
so why not fictional characters?

 

Image via thinkstock

care who you are or how hard
you believe in something. It

only cares about your ideas. The
most important element of an
argument is to be honest—not
just with your opponent, but
with yourself. Ifyou misrepresent
your opponent, you are only
demonstrating that your ideas
cannot stand on their own
merits. And if that’s the case, why
believe in them to begin with?

 

THOMPSON
RIVERS
UNIVERSITY

Open Learning

Take courses online
this summer.

« Soak up the sun while you study; take your education

with you wherever you go.

« Keep your summer job by studying at a time and place

that works for you.

« Earn credits now and lighten your workload next year.

¢ Choose from over 500 courses.

« Register anytime and get started right away. There are

no fixed registration dates.

truopen.ca/summeronline

1-877-543-3576