Strawman+Arguments

=__**Strawman Arguments**__=

Arguments try to convince you of something by providing you with information about why something is a good idea. We naturally talk and discuss various issues that come up in our lives. The most common understand of we do this is because sharing information protects us against dangerous unexpected situations.

__Example:__ Chris does not want to put up the information about what is for lunch. He has better things to do, like play games. He thinks no one really cares about it anyway. But here is the argument: not knowing what is in lunch is not dangerous for most, but if you have allergies it can be life or death!

A very common argument used is: //**I do it, so you should too.**// This is called a strawman argument. Because strawmen are not real people. They are fake. Meaning this is a fake argument. The person just wants to get their way, without providing you with any real reason why what they want is better. //Can you think of an example of someone saying this to you?//

A common variant of this argument is to make it seem a bit more complicated by making it more emotional and social: **//if we do this then you should have nothing to worry about, as long as you have nothing to hide.//** Here the burden of proving something is being shifted to the listener, to justify that they should hide nothing, making them question themself. This tends to instinctivly put people on the defensive. We instinctively want to be included in social groups, and saying we have something to hide here makes us feel excluded, which we tend to want to avoid naturally. This argument is no different than the one above because it still does not provide you with any reason to the argument, except you want to be included, right?! That is peer pressure. Again, the person just wants to get their way, without providing you with any real reason why what they want is better.

__**Activity**__

//**Step1**// In groups of 2, create your own strawman argument. We will share this with the the class.

We will develop these using technology to make their presentation more distracting with visuals and sounds.
 * //Step2//**

//**Step3**// We will share these with class, and decide which ones we think are the most convincing without providing us any reason why.

Share these with other people, like a test, see what they think.
 * //Step4//**