- Joined
- Oct 30, 2004
- Messages
- 95,963
- Reaction score
- 35,164
From /r/democrats:
^^^ tribalism in action.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapons/
One of the cutting-edge advances in fallacy-ology has been the weak man, a terribly-named cousin of the straw man. The straw man is a terrible argument nobody really holds, which was only invented so your side had something easy to defeat. The weak man is a terrible argument that only a few unrepresentative people hold, which was only brought to prominence so your side had something easy to defeat.
For example, “I am a proud atheist and I don’t like religion. Think of the terrible things done by religion, like the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. They try to disturb the funerals of heroes because they think God hates everybody. But this is horrible. Religious people can’t justify why they do things like this. That’s why I’m proud to be an atheist.”
It’s not a straw man. There really is a Westboro Baptist Church, for some reason. But one still feels like the atheist is making things just a little too easy on himself.
Maybe the problem is that the atheist is indirectly suggesting that Westboro Baptist Church is typical of religion? An implied falsehood?
Then suppose the atheist posts on Tumblr: “I hate religious people who are rabidly certain that the world was created in seven days or that all their enemies will burn in Hell, and try to justify it through ‘faith’. You know, the sort of people who think that the Bible has all the answers and who hate anyone who tries to think for themselves.”
Now there’s practically no implication that these people are typical. So that’s fine, right?
On the other side of the world, a religious person is writing “I hate atheists who think morality is relative, and that this gives them the right to murder however many people stand between them and a world where no one is allowed to believe in God”.
Again, not a straw man. The Soviet Union contained several million of these people. But if you’re an atheist, would you just let this pass?
How about “I hate black thugs who rob people”?
What are the chances a black guy reads that and says “Well, good thing I’m not a thug who robs people, he’ll probably love me”?
