The War on Straw



"A straw man argument is one based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To 'set up a straw man' or 'set up a straw man argument' is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view but is easier to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. - Wikipedia"

So, you want to bring up politics, or have An Aesop, but can't bring yourself to fairly represent the other side of the argument? You Did Not Do the Research about the other side's position, and hope to patch your argument with a little dodgy logic?

Well, there's only one thing to do! Declare War On Straw!

You too can fight against positions that would make an outside observer say What an Idiot!! Just don't fight anything that has any resemblance to reality, and you should win easily!

Some of the tropes here are not strawman every time they appear; for instance, a Corrupt Church, Animal Wrongs Group, or Amoral Attorney can sometimes be used as a villain a la Acceptable Targets without any (deliberate) intention of making a larger political statement. Sometimes people use those things with the justification that they do exist in reality to a limited extent -- but they are still strawmen when used, implicitly or explicitly, to try to make a larger argument against anyone who shares their beliefs.

Sometimes the existence of non-corrupt/wrong/amoral versions is acknowledged in the setting to indicate that there's no hard feelings; on the other hand, sometimes those good versions are really a Fox News Liberal used to try to make an actual strawman less obvious.

It is also important to note that caricature, itself, can be a perfectly valid way to make an argument; Voltaire, Swift, and many other writers have used it effectively and incisively against their opponents. The distinction is that valid caricatures use exaggeration and hyperbole as rhetorical devices to present nonetheless legitimate arguments, exposing the victim's failings and flaws without misrepresenting them. But the line between the two can be extremely thin, especially in unskilled hands or when the author does not truly understand what they are trying to caricature; many authors have produced strawmen that were painfully obvious to others while believing themselves to be penning biting Swiftian satire.

For more detail about the fallacy upon which this series of tropes is named, see Strawman Fallacy.

The flip side (where the target is so wacky it's hard to parody) is Poe's Law.

When the War on Straw is being lost, its Straw Man Has a Point. -

The War On Straw has many fronts; among them are:


 * Agent Scully (used to portray skeptics and scientists as people who don't believe in magic/the paranormal/higher powers simply because they categorically dismiss anything that doesn't fit into their "hyper-rational" worldview.)
 * Amoral Attorney
 * Animal Wrongs Group
 * Anti Role Model
 * Assimilation Academy (where schools are portrayed as soul-sucking institutions designed to mould everyone into being identical.)
 * Belief Makes You Stupid
 * Bomb Throwing Anarchists
 * Category Traitor
 * Corrupt Church (or Path of Inspiration if that trope is used to portray a real-world religion, or an Expy of one)
 * Cruella to Animals (pretending anyone who eats meat or wears fur actually like animals being hurt)
 * Demonization
 * Designated Evil
 * Designated Villain
 * Dry Crusader
 * False Dichotomy (two fronts for the price of one!)
 * Fox News Liberal
 * The Fundamentalist (can be used to portray a religious stereotype)
 * Fur and Loathing (to make someone look bad just by what they are wearing)
 * Gay Conservative
 * Golden Mean Fallacy (to declare that both sides are extreme and the "correct" side is somewhere in the middle)
 * Good Is Dumb (portrays goodness and idealism as something utterly moronic and out of touch with life)
 * The Hedonist
 * Heteronormative Crusader
 * Hollywood Atheist
 * Hollywood Satanism
 * No Mere Windmill
 * Not Making This Up Disclaimer (when the Strawman in question is an honest representation)
 * Idiot of the Week
 * Internal Affairs
 * Lady Land
 * Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid
 * Literal Strawman (when the Straw Character is actually fought, rather than debated around)
 * Malcolm Xerox
 * No Womans Land
 * Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions (when used as a way for the author to say religion is evil/encumbering on society)
 * Parody Religion
 * Politically Motivated Teacher (in its most basic form)
 * Straw Affiliation
 * Straw Character
 * Straw Civilian
 * Straw Critic
 * Straw Fan
 * Straw Feminist
 * Straw Hypocrite (When the Hypocrite doesn't even believe what he preaches; as with Amoral Attorney or Corrupt Church, not always a subtrope of The War On Straw, but a frequent one nevertheless.)
 * Straw Loser
 * Straw Misogynist
 * Strawman Emotional
 * Straw Man Has a Point (what happens when bad writing or authorial myopia creates a front in The War On Straw that the author actually has a chance of losing)
 * Strawman News Media
 * Strawman Product (making a false image of another product)
 * Strawman U
 * Straw Vegetarian
 * Straw Vulcan
 * The Presents Were Never From Santa (When the trope is used to dismiss authority and undermine legitimacy)
 * Theory Tunnelvision
 * There Are No Good Executives
 * Too Incompetent to Operate A Blanket
 * Windmill Crusader
 * Windmill Political