Tankies put this one together: china, your favourite little dictatorship, is helping out your most hated almost dictatorship? How is that possible. I thought china was a chad anti usa amd imperialism state. Or maybe theyre also imperalists and just jumped on trumps dick the moment they saw they could profit from it.
“Tankies are biased towards China and against the US” isn’t a strawman, it’s part of the core definition of what makes someone a tankie. This is pretty valid criticism of a group with really inconsistently applied values (though it is, perhaps understandably, a little bit smug)
The word “tankie” itself is a thought terminating cliche that allows people to presuppose a complete understanding of another person’s worldview, without engaging in the nuance of their actual position.
It should come as no surprise that the term alone clears the bar for “strawmanning” in some people’s minds.
This is a ridiculous position to hold. Can you name me a single appellation that isn’t used to summarize those thus described? That’s kind of the point of using labels, to categorize things together by their common attribute(s). If we spent all of our time engaging with every single person to the point that we fully understood their perspective and worldview, not only would we never get anything done, we’d be utterly at the mercy of anyone who engages in bad faith.
Not all discourse is intended to be (or even should be) civil, though. A hypothetical citizen of Strawmanslund who venerates Mao Zedong as a hero and visionary, who holds the position that his successes more than make up for his failures, is not a person I want to be laboring under the misapprehension that I could ever respect them.
That’s certainly your prerogative. Personally, I like to engage with as broad a selection of opinions as possible in an effort to avoid being propagandized. I try to not allow my respect, or lack thereof, for a conversational partner to allow me to retreat to a bubble of like-minded opinions. Only by engaging with a diverse range of opinions can I hope to arrive at a nuanced view of the world. Of course, you do need to be adept at recognizing when you’re engaged in bad-faith discussion.
One can listen critically to an argument without having to immediately make up one’s mind.
I understand you think this is the clearly the correct view to hold, and I do (sincerely) understand why you’d hold this opinion. On the surface, treating everyone with uniform fairness until you’ve heard out their argument is clearly the magnanimous way to do things. But this is the fundamental issue of the Paradox of Tolerance - shutting down a conversation with a partner who espouses views like the above Hypothetical Stramandian isn’t “retreating to a bubble of like-minded opinions”, it’s refusing to treat with someone who’s opinions are so fundamentally offensive to a peaceful ethos, so personally disgusting, that they absolutely should face social consequences for the opinions they hold.
“Always be polite” as a policy doesn’t work in the face of so very many political views or odious personal opinions because the lack of negative reaction can easily be recontextualized as positive reinforcement.
You shouldn’t use words you do not understand. You cannot present a strawman argument outside the context of a debate or argument.
Not everything is you disagree with is logically flawed. Sometimes things are untrue and logically consistent. Sometimes you’re just wrong. Sometimes the other guy is.
Actually, you can present the fallacy to anyone providing an undistributed middle syllogism, since they’ve “made an argument”. In the post, an undistributed middle is identifiable - “your most hated almost dictatorship”. This is almost certainly not the same even among tankies, so the user is putting forth an argument with poor logic from the get-go. You’re not actually educated about logic except by youtube videos from people using greek or roman figures as avatars, are you?
Right on, buddy! Logic nerds forever! Screw those “pathos” and “ethos” thingies, what possible use could they be? We, the high and mighty logicians, know that Logos is the only one that matters! Appeal to logos or appeal to death, amirite??
(Just to be clear here, this is a pretty nerdy website. If you’re going to pose an argument like this, you should make sure it’s sound before throwing down the “bruh do u even see how educated I am” gauntlet…)
Tankies put this one together: china, your favourite little dictatorship, is helping out your most hated almost dictatorship? How is that possible. I thought china was a chad anti usa amd imperialism state. Or maybe theyre also imperalists and just jumped on trumps dick the moment they saw they could profit from it.
Careful with that strawman, breathe on it and it’ll fall over
“Tankies are biased towards China and against the US” isn’t a strawman, it’s part of the core definition of what makes someone a tankie. This is pretty valid criticism of a group with really inconsistently applied values (though it is, perhaps understandably, a little bit smug)
The word “tankie” itself is a thought terminating cliche that allows people to presuppose a complete understanding of another person’s worldview, without engaging in the nuance of their actual position.
It should come as no surprise that the term alone clears the bar for “strawmanning” in some people’s minds.
This is a ridiculous position to hold. Can you name me a single appellation that isn’t used to summarize those thus described? That’s kind of the point of using labels, to categorize things together by their common attribute(s). If we spent all of our time engaging with every single person to the point that we fully understood their perspective and worldview, not only would we never get anything done, we’d be utterly at the mercy of anyone who engages in bad faith.
I see this less as a dichotomy and more as a spectrum, with some labels being far more useful to civil discourse than others.
Not all discourse is intended to be (or even should be) civil, though. A hypothetical citizen of Strawmanslund who venerates Mao Zedong as a hero and visionary, who holds the position that his successes more than make up for his failures, is not a person I want to be laboring under the misapprehension that I could ever respect them.
That’s certainly your prerogative. Personally, I like to engage with as broad a selection of opinions as possible in an effort to avoid being propagandized. I try to not allow my respect, or lack thereof, for a conversational partner to allow me to retreat to a bubble of like-minded opinions. Only by engaging with a diverse range of opinions can I hope to arrive at a nuanced view of the world. Of course, you do need to be adept at recognizing when you’re engaged in bad-faith discussion.
One can listen critically to an argument without having to immediately make up one’s mind.
I understand you think this is the clearly the correct view to hold, and I do (sincerely) understand why you’d hold this opinion. On the surface, treating everyone with uniform fairness until you’ve heard out their argument is clearly the magnanimous way to do things. But this is the fundamental issue of the Paradox of Tolerance - shutting down a conversation with a partner who espouses views like the above Hypothetical Stramandian isn’t “retreating to a bubble of like-minded opinions”, it’s refusing to treat with someone who’s opinions are so fundamentally offensive to a peaceful ethos, so personally disgusting, that they absolutely should face social consequences for the opinions they hold.
“Always be polite” as a policy doesn’t work in the face of so very many political views or odious personal opinions because the lack of negative reaction can easily be recontextualized as positive reinforcement.
You shouldn’t use words you do not understand. You cannot present a strawman argument outside the context of a debate or argument.
Not everything is you disagree with is logically flawed. Sometimes things are untrue and logically consistent. Sometimes you’re just wrong. Sometimes the other guy is.
Actually, you can present the fallacy to anyone providing an undistributed middle syllogism, since they’ve “made an argument”. In the post, an undistributed middle is identifiable - “your most hated almost dictatorship”. This is almost certainly not the same even among tankies, so the user is putting forth an argument with poor logic from the get-go. You’re not actually educated about logic except by youtube videos from people using greek or roman figures as avatars, are you?
Right on, buddy! Logic nerds forever! Screw those “pathos” and “ethos” thingies, what possible use could they be? We, the high and mighty logicians, know that Logos is the only one that matters! Appeal to logos or appeal to death, amirite??
(Just to be clear here, this is a pretty nerdy website. If you’re going to pose an argument like this, you should make sure it’s sound before throwing down the “bruh do u even see how educated I am” gauntlet…)