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kevinbolk — The Straw Man Argument
Published: 2011-03-23 14:03:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 160707; Favourites: 2002; Downloads: 3414
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Description
This was the art for one of the slides for my "10 Things I Hate About Webcomics" panel I put together for Zenkaicon 2011. The idea behind the whole thing was to poke fun at common webcomics tropes, cliches, and/or bad habits and to help new creators recognize them and then either avoid them or exploit them (because anything, even tropes, done well can still make for good entertainment). This stuff can be applied to a lot of other media as well and I think most creators (myself included) have been guilty of them at one point or another.This was actually the second part of the "Webcomic As Soapbox" slide. The first part covered the straight-up rant that features the author's avatar breaking the fourth wall to express his opinions directly at the reader for panels upon panels (which I have done myself so I just used one of my older comics as an example). This one is the slightly less obvious "Straw Man Argument". You will see it quite often in political cartoons and in auto-bio comics.
I really do my best to avoid these like the plague. It would be like beating a one-eyed dog at chess. It's way too easy and it kinda makes me look like a jerkass (especially in the eyes of people who don't already agree with me).
Not that webcomics can't or shouldn't express a point of view. I'd just like to see it done with a little more finesse.
::EDIT::- The purpose here is not to take stabs at fellow artists, which is why I was reluctant to post these outside the context of the panel in the first place. ~_~ Any direct resemblance to any particular work is completely and honestly unintentional.
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Comments: 902
Please look up what a hasty generalization fallacy is.
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Please look up Creationist Nonsense.
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This doesn't change the fact that your original comment is a fallacy.
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I'm seeing comments comparing the context of this illustration with "Tom Preston" What exactly has he done to get a bad rap? Haven't followed him for a while but do know he was trying to publish his own comic.
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Because people are stupid?
Curtsibling, the guy who drew the most hate art on Tom only said that "because Tom blocks people" and "he had an inflatable fetish".
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Depends on which people you ask.
People which asked for commisions from him either got ripped off, never done or got whitewashed characters. (He once drew Jasmine with pale skin, blue eyes and light hair. And then blatantly said I don't care to his customer.)
He also did a comic which had Straw Man Arguments as well as conflicting arguments and hypocritical tones.
His one comic which I stumbled upon, and how I learnt of him, and was badly done not only in writing, character development but also with art.
Then he hides behind people who think he's the best man in the world.
And he tells unsespecting budding artists that his methods are a good way to draw. They really aren't. (His art really deteriorated as well, which is rather sad.)
And he treats anyone who tries to deliver needed critique as Trolls and is extremely rude to them, until he learns that they are actually big artists then he's suddenly all nice.
Basically, he's that guy in life that you want to punch to knock his arrogance and ego down by many needed pegs. As well as adjust his personality.
Either way, I suppose it's best to just stay away from him as much as you can.
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That's unfortunate, while at the time I didn't mind his commentary in his comics, bold and provocative I do recall where the ideas for his comics were mainly of him depicting himself as the only 'sensible' one who is faced with ignorance, and for the part I enjoyed it, it had some context I actually could relate to but I think it got too much of a rinse and repeat for me to continue. I wouldn't say he was arrogant (or when I posted back at the time) when I did give a critique at the time with one work where I felt it was too dismissive of others and took it well but he did sound tired. Of course when I posted and got a reply that was when he had an account here and had a picture of himself and not of a bear?! I've clearly missed a 'bit'
I suspect some of the criticism were of his own making, which wouldn't surprise me as he was very good in getting a reaction, but I'm more shocked he would whitewash characters (and actually checked this), and the commissions he never done.
But I'll be staying away, there's clearly trouble surrounding that name.
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No matter how strongly I agree with a comic that is composed this way, I cringe at it. Having firm, inflexible opinions is an error, and presenting your opinions so smugly further skews your intent.
People should focus more on self-scrutiny rather than finding fault in others. Making opponents out to be the villains is more fun than finding fault in your own logic. It is instinctive and irrational. It takes a strong person to turn the blame inward rather than dishing out admonishments for those are are merely slightly more wrong than you are at best.
humon is a danger to the thinking person.
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i cant like comments on deviantA but know that the sentiment is there.
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I like it when someone literally accuses me of sophistication for how I present a well written argument and then turns around and calls me things like mindless or idiotic amidst ranting that I'm a hateful and deplorable person.
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I wonder if people with associative personality disorder can remain neutral in these types of situations.
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Its an old documentary of Triggly Puff in her emo teenage years.
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What if said 'insane logical fallacy' happened to be an actual argument that the opposing person/group actually use irl? I'm just curious if that would still count as a strawman argument.
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That is also to say that you should approach the question from a different angle or present yourself in your "oppositions" place and try to pick the logic from their perspective rather than assuming your logic is correct. It's important to look at something from all sides and make a judgement on whether or not something is true based on evidence and just reasoning and not try to pull people down. Unless their ideology is genocidal or murderous one should approach each argument respectfully.
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Then it's not an actual argument you can draw reason from and it should be ignored.
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Did you read the other part of what I had to say?
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It hurt me to look at this. I see artists do this WAY too many time... and as I'm writing this I see T-Preston's work in the "more from dA" section.
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How do you mean "webcomics can't or shouldn't express a point of view"? Wouldn't technically almost every webcomic ever fall into the category of expressing a point of view, even if done unintentionally? Any sentence that begins with "I think" or "I feel" would be expressing some sort of viewpoint, right?
I don't mean this in a hateful way at all, I'm just genuinely curious. I've never thought about that issue before.
This also makes me wonder about political satire comics that are on the web. I think those would lose the point of their existence if all viewpoints were removed from them.
'Straw man' refers to a caricature or gross misrepresentation of a person or type of people with overexaggerated opinions and/or mannerisms, right? I just want to make sure, because I'm not very well-versed in the world of comics and I want to understand this one.
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I believe the quote is "not that webcomics can't or shouldn't express a point of view", so to say that they can, then followed with the author saying something to the tune 'just that if done with more finesse it would be better'.
And a straw man argument is one that argues against something that was not posited at the get-go, so arguing 'a' vs 'b' when the arguer is treating a third not-quite-the-same 'c' as 'b'. So like attacking a straw man rather than the real opponent.
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OH... My very, very bad mistake. I apologize.
That was poor understanding on my part, or rather a misreading. Gosh, this was a while ago. In any case, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, and thank you for clearing it up. You didn't have to take the time to do that, but you did, and I appreciate it.
Ah, I see! Thanks for explaining that, I'm glad I got to learn something new today. They say "you learn something new every day", but that doesn't hold much water when you think about what you actually remember learning.
I imagine a literal man made out of straw... I take it that would be the point. Thanks again - and, I never had a chance to say this, but you have some excellent stuff here. I love your artwork. Thanks for sharing your talent with the DA community.
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No worries! All's well. c:
I'm glad I got to share the knowledge! And yeah, it's really funny to imagine someone punching a scarecrow or something while the actual opponent stands to the side in confusion.
Ah, you have some lovely works as well. Thanks for glancing at my own gallery. I wish the best for you ('v')b
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Aww, heh ^///^ well aren't you sweet.
Thank you very much, it really means a lot that an accomplished artist like yourself has taken the time and consideration to gaze upon my own work - and compliment it, no less! That sure makes me feel special.
You have so many cool things in your gallery, it was an absolute pleasure discovering you. 
Cheers!
-AM
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My pet peeve? When you give an actual representation of the antagonist's ACTUAL ARGUMENT, sometimes even VERBATIM-- and without fail some would-be intellectual claims you're using a "straw man."
I've never needed to use straw men: I just quote the opposition, rebuttal them and then sit back and watch.
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And very often be wrong while doing so. If you are a human, and you have a firm opinion, it is most likely that you are destructively misinformed.
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But what about the Tariff of 1789!? It totally disproves that Squirtle is the best starting Pokernoms.
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You fool in the Hague Conventions of 1899 it was unanimously agreed that Squirtle is the best Pokamon.
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They say that somewhere in cyber space, a blue bear wearing a fedora still lingers, flashing his blue bear balls at every logical disagreement with him.
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I thought it would be an anti-feminist comic. I'm glad it isn't. I'm tired of all those anti-feminist/anti-SJW caricatures...
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Yeah what's up with that lately? Fighting outrage with...more outrage?
In forums I see more and more of those 'Cue the angry feminist mob'-types comment and then you check the posts and in fact not one person made an issue. Or similarly the 'if the situation was reversed the feminazi's would be all over this'-type of comments. What's the point of being preemptively offended over a hypothetical situation? It's absurd. I get people are getting tired of extreme feminists, but people on both sides of the spectrum seem to be going off the deep end...
Hope you don't mind me rambling here. Guess it's been grinding my gears lately.
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"I get people are getting tired of extreme feminists,"
No, to me it looks like people are only getting tired of products of the own imaginations.
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Well I certain agree that it's been blown out of proportion, I mean that's exactly the point in my comment, but radical feminism is a thing unfortunately, spoiling the movement for real progress to gender equality.
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It's not just that they're a minority. I don't think the exact criticisms people tend to give of feminism really accurately describes what extreme members of feminism believe. Rather they're attacking a position they've mainly invented.
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Oh definitely agree, lots of strawmanning going on there unfortunately
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"Fighting outrage with... more outrage?"
Yes, that's always been everyone's tactic. Hate breeds hate, and no one ever seems to see that.
I mostly see people posting hateful stuff about groups such as the Neo-Nazi's; as if hating the hateful makes you any better of a person.
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So hating Jews is comparable to hating Nazis?
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