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Straw Vulcan: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''A mind all logic is like a knife all blade; it makes the hand bleed that wields it.''
|'''Rabindranath Tagore'''}}
A [[The War On Straw|straw man]] used to show that emotion is better than logic.
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Because the author is more concerned with setting up their straw man than in handling logic correctly, they will often misuse and distort the concept to create contrived examples where what they're calling "logic" doesn't work. Common situations include:
* The '''Straw Vulcan''' will only accept a guaranteed success. A plan that only has a chance of success is not "logical", even if the chance is the highest possible. This is actually a well-known ''error'' in logic, called the [[Perfect Solution Fallacy]].
* The story assumes a "logical" plan is one where every step makes the goal visibly closer, and accepting a short-term disadvantage for a long-term advantage is not "logical". There's nothing inherently illogical in accepting a short-term set-back if it makes the long-term success more likely.
* The Straw Vulcan will be completely unable or unwilling to plan for unexpected and even illogical [[Viewer Myopia|behavior of other parties]].
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{{Noreallife|real people are not crafted for a specific purpose.}}
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime
* Rossiu in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' touches on this after the time-skip; when the citizens are rioting over the destruction caused by {{spoiler|the Anti-Spirals}}, he tries to placate [[Dying Like Animals|the populace]] by having Simon arrested and scheduled for execution, since Simon is technically responsible for the actions that led to the villain's attacking them (even though everyone else did just as much) and caused a lot of property damage by destroying an enemy in a populated area. He also wants to have the Ganmen and Lagann destroyed because it's outdated technology, and tries to save humanity by having them hide underground or evacuate on a spaceship. When this turns out to be futile... Simon saves the day by kicking reason to the curb and breaking through the impossible. Because that's what the show's about, baby!
** It's played with, too, Rossiu is not criticized on-screen for his actions after the fact by anyone other than himself, everyone else in fact pats him on the back for doing what he thought was best and making a painfully hard decision.
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*** This is actually a very logical course of action if you are willing to accept the consequences, one of Paul's [[Arc Words|maxims]] is that "He who can destroy a thing, controls that thing." He is willing to destroy civilization as he knows it, and knows the Guild is not.
**** Herbert explains much of why Paul does what he does in a set of correspondence with the legendary [[John W. Campbell]], where the two of them mutually note that Paul is a ''teenaged boy'' with vast knowledge, esoteric powers, and now enormous political and economic power, but he's not really wise. He can't be wise, not yet. He doesn't have enough life experience to be wise. His later actions prove this to be painfully true. His intentions are (mostly) good, but he makes a mess on a truly epic scale and it falls to his son Leto II to really clean things up.
* ''[[Discworld]]''
** [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
** Actually, logic works perfectly in Discworld once you account for the trope-based physics there. Purposefully lowering your chances until you have only one in a million chance has actually been used as a successful battle plan in the books.
*** Or rather, it's been attempted by the [[Genre Savvy]], who inevitably fail because they aren't statisticians, and therefore fail to make their chances ''exactly'' a million to one because they're working with rough estimates. They will then be saved by some other thing which ''is'' exactly a million to one.
** Parodied in ''[[
*** That, and he's in the Fairyland that tends to drive people insane if they spend too much time there.
** Ponder Stibbons in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s books that involve wizards is often assigned this role, and gets to express frustration because he lives in a world where thunderbolts really are signs of gods' annoyance instead of massive bursts of static electricity.
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** [[Didn't See That Coming|The starfort the Soul Drinkers were occupying proved to have a wing of fighter craft onboard]].
** There's also the possibility that the Soul Drinkers would've sent a message to their "ancestor" chapter, detailing what this faction of the Mechanicus had done directly after attacking the ship, rather than picking up the [[Conflict Ball]] and [[Idiot Ball|sulking in a corner, letting the Mechanicus cast all the blame on them without even trying to defend their own actions or condemn theirs.]]
* Possible example in [[E. E. Cummings]]'s poem ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120819132502/http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/feeling.html since feeling is first]'', although it doesn't say logic is wrong per se, simply that it's less important than love.
* Subverted by Paul Redeker in [[World War Z]]. While his rather [[Emotions vs. Stoicism|amoral]] plans to save {{spoiler|parts of}} the white population of South Africa during a black uprising make him universally despised, these plans end up {{spoiler|saving millions}}.
** To be fair, he does have a breakdown after Mandela embraces him to endorse his plan.
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* Used in the second ''[[Little Fuzzy]]'' book in the character of Jan Christiaan Hoenveld. It's pointed out that this is why he doesn't make a very good scientist.
** More specifically, its pointed out why he makes a poor choice as a researcher, which requires a capacity for speculative thinking. As a scientific ''investigator'' he is first-class, and acknowledged as such. The problem is that he was assigned as head of Research & Development, not Quality Control.
* Played with interestingly in E.E. "Doc" Smith's [[Skylark Series]]. The Llurdi, introduced in the fourth book, are an ''absurdly'' logical race. They have virtually no imagination or creative ability, rely on other 'illogical' races to make intuitive theoretical breakthroughs and confine themselves simply to applied engineering using physics principles discovered by others, often reason from extended syllogisms, and their entire body of philosphical thought (let alone their governmental system) is limited to a variant of rule utiliarianism. However, despite this they seem engineered to ''avert'' every single one of the Straw Vulcan characteristics listed at the top of this page, save for the one about creativity:
** The Llurdi avert the [[Perfect Solution Fallacy]] hardcore. Their response to a situation is the one they compute has the best chance of working, regardless of whether that is 100% or not. In fact, in one specific scene the Llurdi's ruler orders a defensive system to be prepared "so that no even theoretically possible attack on this planet will succeed", but the Llurdi engineers still do not get caught up seeking an unattainable perfection but simply stop once their system has contingencies sufficient to handle any contingency they compute has a probability greater than 0.01%.
** The Llurdi are entirely willing to use a plan that makes a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. In one scene, after it is made absolutely plain that a captive population absolutely refuses to breed in captivity and artificial insemination is not viable, the Llurdi simply release them back into the wild -- with the intent of following them later and abducting at least some of the children they will have years later.
** The Llurdi not only expect and prepare for illogical (by Llurdi standards) behavior from every other sentient race in the universe, they are actually nonplused on the few occasions that other sentients match them logic for logic.
** The 'mathematical models' one is the only subtrope that the Llurdi even begin to fall into -- but given that Llurdan logic allows for both inductive and statistical methods along with deductive ones, they're doing no worse than real-world humans are regarding math limits.
** In a complete reversal of the 'logical' race needing excessive time to ponder every response, it is explicitly mentioned and demonstrated in text that Llurdi have a faster reaction time to unexpected emergencies than any other sentient race in the universe. The author directly lampshades that a ''truly'' 'perfectly logical' mind would not have its performance inhibited by ''any'' form of emotion -- and "shock" and "surprise" are both emotions. In one scene a council of senior Llurdan bureaucrats are subject to a terrorist attack in the middle of a government meeting with absolutely no warning -- and immediately react to the attack with a speed and precision more characteristic of veteran special operations troops, because they were able to instantaneously process the new data and formulate a useful response.
== Live-Action TV ==
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* ''[[Bones]]'' lives on the [[Odd Couple]] relationship between emotional and intuitive Booth and logical and rational Brennan: she's frequently shown as being wrong in the end, or being right for the wrong reasons.
** It get's really jarring when you consider that Bones is very rarely rational or logical at all. In a recent episode Angela pointed out that one of Brennan's skills is, rather than being rational, ''rationalizing'' her actions.
***In some ways she is. When she says she is the best scientist in the country, it is not because she is bragging. It is because ''she is the best scientist in the country'' and it is absurd to waste time pretending otherwise. When she corrects someone else's error she is not trying to annoy them. It is because she really would want to be corrected when she is wrong. It is not her logic that is at fault it is her information deficiency that comes from not sensing other's emotions.
**** The point being made is that its a failure in her logic to not ''realize'' that she has this 'information deficiency' problem and take appropriate coping measures. To be unable to recognize your limitations and act accordingly is not logical. Especially when its a ''known syndrome''.
*** Consider her as borderline [[Hollywood Autism]] who was severely emotionally damaged when her parents abandoned her. All of a sudden her retreat into pseudorationality makes sense. It's still annoying.
** When Brennan [[Easy Amnesia|lost her memory of the last couple days]] and was framed for murder; she argued ''in favor her own guilt'' as the most logical conclusion even though the police had no motive whatsoever and Booth pointed out she was not capable of murder.
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* One episode of ''M*A*S*H'' featured a logistics expert who was treated as little more than a cold and calculating monster because he projected casualties before a battle in order to make preparations for receiving them. By the end of the episode, of course, Hawkeye had taught him the "error" of his ways. Also overlaps, as these things often do, with [[Straw Man Has a Point]].
* In the ''[[Modern Family]]'' episode "Lifetime Supply", Jay and Manny go the horse track with Manny's father, Javier ([[Law and Order|Benjamin Bratt]]). Jay chooses his horses based on the information in the ''Daily Racing Form''. Javier bets on a horse because "I looked him in the eyes, and he told me this would be his day". Guess who wins? To add insult to injury, Jay chooses a horse this way and ''it'' wins ... only to be disqualified.
== Music ==
* In the [[Grateful Dead]] song ''Terrapin Station'', a potential love interest [[Secret Test of Character|tests]] the [[Single Woman Seeks Good Man|worthiness]] of the heros, a [[The Spock|soldier]] and a [[The McCoy|sailor]], by [[Moral Dissonance|throwing her fan into the lion's den]] and promising her love to whoever would retreive it for her. The sailor [[Mad Love|decides to]], while the soldier refuses, and says "Strategy is my strength, not disaster." The sailor [[Million-to-One Chance|succeeds, and gets the girl, rather than getting his ass handed to him by the lions]].
* The whole point of [[Billy Joel]]'s hit, "I Go To Extremes":
{{quote|''Darling I don't know why I got to extremes
''Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
''And if I stand or I fall
''It's all or nothing at all
''Darling I don't know why I got to extremes''.}}
== Tabletop Games ==
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== Real Life ==
* every SMWCentral moderator and administrator.
* The [[Josef Stalin|Stalin era]] Soviet Union followed the 'everything but this specific model is not really logic'. For example, probability mathematics was declared a 'bourgeois pseudoscience' and the Law of Large Numbers a 'false theory'. The idea of anything less than [[You Can't Fight Fate|perfect and total determinism]] just somehow ''irked'' them. Things improved a bit after Stalin croaked, and but the damage had already been done.
** Bear in mind, this is a government which banned ''genetics'' because things like Mendel's laws were incompatible with their politics. Hmm... [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|where have we heard]] [[The Fundamentalist|this one before]]?
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Anti-Intellectualism]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
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[[Category:Philosophy Tropes]]
[[Category:Emotion Tropes]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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