'Arguments' That Have Lost Their Meaning Through Overuse

[TJ]

Basically just an excuse to rant about things that are annoying me, but I'd be interested to hear what other examples are currently getting people's 'goat'.

If there's one phrase that I'm sick of hearing in debates, it's 'straw man'. Yes, as a concept, its actual literal meaning makes sense, but it seems to me more and more that people just use it as a referee would a red card, as though saying 'straw man!' negates anything else that has been said and brings an end to the discussion. It also conveniently eradicates the need for any further elucidation on your own viewpoint. It's the discursive equivalent of saying "la la la, I can't hear you" basically.

See also 'jumped the shark'.

Any others?

[zozman]

I don't know what Straw Man means - anyone?

I've only got a vague idea of jumping the shark too - is it when something that used to be good gets shit?

[Dr David V]

I think 'jumping the shark' is a link to Happy Days, when The Fonz waterskis over a shark. It was at this precise moment the series turned from good to shit. I think.

[jutl]

Daily Mail as a term of abuse. Just because they print views that are unpopular in the 16-35 age range, doesn't make them wrong. Often they are wrong, I think, but it's not that simple. People who maintain it's a racist Litte Englander rag need to explain why they were the only paper with the bollocks to name the Stephen Lawrence suspects after the farcical collapse of the DPP's prosecution attempts...

Also, while i'm bitching...

As an aside, if I even sniff a single post along the lines of "Well, if you had children you'd understand..." then I shall know Verbwhores is finally dead.

As an aside, that's extremely smug and intolerant.

[TJ]

I don't know what Straw Man means - anyone?

It ostensibly refers to the idea of creating something irrelevant/non-extant to attack in support of your argument. A bit like Tony Blair blaming 'the sixties' for the failure of his social policies, I suppose.

The only problem is that people now have subverted the notion so that, say, grumbling about Paul Jackson censoring repeats of "The Young Ones" and freely admitting responsibility for doing so will provoke accusations of having a 'straw man argument'.

[notnotnatnats]

Overused at my place of work 'Seagull Manager' - Someone who comes in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything then leaves.

Perhaps Dexion et al could be referred to as 'Seagull Verbwhores'.

[Evil Knevil]

Hmm, I always thought strawman was the use of extended reasoning, such as "If they take away our guns, then we'd be powerless to stop a commie revolution.... Do you like commies so much that you want to take away our guns?"

But I could be wrong.

[zozman]

Description of Straw Man
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:


Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Examples of Straw Man

Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."
Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

"Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:
Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."
Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."


Apparently....

[Purple Tentacle]

I really like that "seagull manager" phrase!

"If you had children you'd understand" IS one of my more hated phrases, one of those patronising put-downs guaranteed to enrage.

Nothing can be more irritating than a "whatevaar" after you've made a salient, argument winning point, however.

[hencole]

Daily Mail as a term of abuse. .

[/quote]

Why not? Same as calling someone a Guardian reader. Why should everything be over analysed? We should be allowed to use generalisations to desribe people and reactions rather than break everything down into an overly complex analysis of the meaning. We all know what Daily Mail reader inplies, it does not neccessarily mean we think that all Daily Mail readers are the same. I don't get offended if someone uses the term Guardian reader to imply someone is a wooly lefty liberal. I know exactly what characteristics they are describing whilst at the same time know that not all readers are like that.

'It's political correctness gone mad!' to quote a Daily Mail reader.

[jutl]

"If you had children you'd understand" IS one of my more hated phrases, one of those patronising put-downs guaranteed to enrage.

But if someone said - "If you loved cats you'd understand..." would that be patronising? Why is it inadmissible to say (effectively): "You are not capable of understanding the depth and intensity of these emotions because you are not in my position."? Conversely why is OK to say:

As an aside, if I even sniff a single post along the lines of "Well, if you had children you'd understand..." then I shall know Verbwhores is finally dead.

or, to put it another way: "I will not tolerate certain statements of feeling if they rile me personally. I will characterise them as only being experienced by the stupid."

Daily Mail as a term of abuse. .

Why not? Same as calling someone a Guardian reader. Why should everything be over analysed? We should be allowed to use generalisations to desribe people and reactions rather than break everything down into an overly complex analysis of the meaning. We all know what Daily Mail reader inplies, it does not neccessarily mean we think that all Daily Mail readers are the same. I don't get offended if someone uses the term Guardian reader to imply someone is a wooly lefty liberal. I know exactly what characteristics they are describing whilst at the same time know that not all readers are like that.

'It's political correctness gone mad!' to quote a Daily Mail reader.

Why not? I suppose because it's precisely the kind of reductionist precis that people attack them for. So is 'Guardian reader', for that matter. It was just a small point - an opinion is either bollocks or not - the fact that it appeared in the Mail, or was said by someone who reads the Mail is beside the point. surely...

[Purple Tentacle]

"If you had children you'd understand" IS one of my more hated phrases, one of those patronising put-downs guaranteed to enrage.

But if someone said - "If you loved cats you'd understand..." would that be patronising? Why is it inadmissible to say (effectively): "You are not capable of understanding the depth and intensity of these emotions because you are not in my position."?

I'm not speaking for SNG, but the "If you had children you'd understand" is usually used to imply that my view on something concerning children, be it the castration of paedophiles, letting out-of-control children run fucking coins down my car or a curfew for under 10s hanging around shopping centres at 9PM, is rendered completely meaningless because I haven't emptied my nuts into a fertile womb.

As if having children suddenly gives you amazing social insight into all problems concerning children, and all parents, especially mothers, are instantly more worldly and knowledgable about childcare than I am.


True, I know nothing about changing shitty nappies, so to be honest if I said "The idea of having to wipe up a screaming grub's faeces three times a day makes me feel sick to the stomach", you COULD say "If you had children you'd understand" because it's not something I've ever tried to do (I'm not strange) and have absolutely no experience with.

However I DO have a valid opinion about social issues, and I don't need to have knocked someone up to hold them.

And if those little cunts throw any more eggs at my window they're going to find a lot of ground glass on their poxy climbing frames.

[Evil Knevil]

Description of Straw Man.

So I was right. Which proves that anybody who disagreed is a cunt (etc)

[Almost Yearly]

I...after you've made a salient, argument winning point...

I always use "salient" like that too, but the other day I happened to look it up here, where no mention is made of "relevant." Is it cos they is american?


And still no-one's told me what the alternative to a "received opinion" is. One derived from first principles by a child left alone in a cave from birth, I suppose.

[TJ]

And still no-one's told me what the alternative to a "received opinion" is. One derived from first principles by a child left alone in a cave from birth, I suppose.

I think that's a problem with the perception of 'recieved opinion' itself, though. As far as I was aware, it refers to an 'opinion' held by someone who hasn't bothered to make their own mind up about something and instead has adopted a popular soundbite viewpoint. Like taking a clip show talking head's word for something that you'd never actually encountered yourself.

I can't think of a good non-comedy example right now that will illustrate my point rather than start a fight... except maybe (and this happened yesterday) people who say that David Bowie's Deram and Tin Machine work are 'shit' but then confess that they've never heard either.

[jutl]

"If you had children you'd understand" IS one of my more hated phrases, one of those patronising put-downs guaranteed to enrage.

But if someone said - "If you loved cats you'd understand..." would that be patronising? Why is it inadmissible to say (effectively): "You are not capable of understanding the depth and intensity of these emotions because you are not in my position."?

I'm not speaking for SNG, but the "If you had children you'd understand" is usually used to imply that my view on something concerning children, be it the castration of paedophiles, letting out-of-control children run fucking coins down my car or a curfew for under 10s hanging around shopping centres at 9PM, is rendered completely meaningless because I haven't emptied my nuts into a fertile womb.

Hmm... I can see the point about castration of paedophiles, and I agree. I don't think that saying IYHCYU is a vaild point in a reasoned argument - it's an entirely legitimate way of saying that the childless feel differently about some issues than parents. You could argue that, for that very reason, they ought not to be trusted when giving opinions on these issues. I think the truth is that society's attitude to crime is really a codified statement of shared emotion. Under the Danelaw you could buy your way out of a murder charge entirely legitimately. These days we feel differently and our law reflects that. Saying that having a particular emotional view makes you stupid is illegitimate whichever way round you aim it (in this case anyway).

As for the other points - do parents try to justify their kids' cuntish behaviour that way? I've not encountered that. I thought it was usually a shrugged: "You try and control them..."

[Purple Tentacle]

In all honesty I don't know that many parents personally, but when some rat-boy is given a restraining order from entering a town centre or barred from entering a street because of their repeated anti-social behaviour, the tired-looking mother will inevitably say "People don't understand what it's like being a mother".... plenty of people understand but their sprogs don't go causing misery to the local elderly population.

Each case on its own merits, of course, some children have wonky hormones that make them satan, and some mothers are just crap mothers. But the insinuation is that, as a childless male, I have no idea about the rigours of childbirth and rearing and should therefore not critisise someone's inability to parent.  
Of course I have very little idea of what it's like to raise a child on a daily basis, apart from the experience that nearly EVERYBODY has of being raised as a child, but does that take away my right to critisise someone's parenting?

I have no idea how to programme computer games or to do basic plumbing, but that shouldn't stop me saying that Enter The Matrix is a pile of shite, or that the plumber who turned a replacement washer job into a kitchen flood is a useless cunt.


Similarly, just because I don't have (or like) children doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on childcare, child abuse or the smacking of a child.

[chand]

Daily Mail as a term of abuse. Just because they print views that are unpopular in the 16-35 age range, doesn't make them wrong. Often they are wrong, I think, but it's not that simple.

I agree to an extent, having been to the Mail forums I was surprised by how often the readers simply don't listen to the Mail's more ludicrous arguments. That said, calling someone a Daily Mail reader is a description of a certain type of person, fictitious or not. I read it every day, but I don't view myself as a Daily Mail reader (perhaps because I don't buy it and much of it makes me angry). But there is a certain type of person it's referring to, and there are many of them in my immediate and extended family. People who live in exclusively white, idyllic neighbourhoods and whine about asylum seekers who don't affect their lives in the slightest. People who think speed cameras are a 'tax on motorists', and who don't understand 'all this rap music'. People who use the phrase 'it's political correctness gone mad!' all the time and think people who approve of gay marriage 'hate the family'. People who think to be pro-Europe is to hate Britain, and so on.

It is lazy to some extent, and in many ways I agree it's as reductive as Ann Coulter or Melanie Phillips blathering on about 'liberals' and what these 'liberals' do, but sometimes it serves as an adequate catch-all for the type of person you're talking about. I take your point, but as someone stated above, I don't mind a reference to 'Mail reader' or 'Guardian reader' (cos I am technically both and yet am covered by neither description), as long as you're not using it as a plank to discredit the views of anyone who reads either paper.

[chand]

And still no-one's told me what the alternative to a "received opinion" is. One derived from first principles by a child left alone in a cave from birth, I suppose.

I think that's a problem with the perception of 'recieved opinion' itself, though. As far as I was aware, it refers to an 'opinion' held by someone who hasn't bothered to make their own mind up about something and instead has adopted a popular soundbite viewpoint. Like taking a clip show talking head's word for something that you'd never actually encountered yourself.

I've found that the 'received opinion' works both ways. I've seen 'Monty Python is a work of genius' and 'Monty Python is largely shit' both described as 'received opinions'. In some cases I find it works to the detriment of debate, as if once a certain number of people have voiced the opinion that Python's brilliant bits were great but much of it wasn't very good, that opinion becomes 'received' and therefore worthless. Unless you can back it up with a 1000-word essay.

[Almost Yearly]

Similarly, just because I don't have (or like) children doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on childcare, child abuse or the smacking of a child.

Hm, I don't have (or like) cakes, but in my opinion you should always put black pepper in them.


Heh. Ahem.

[Crazy Penis]

It depends on which way you look at it.

Annoys me a bit when someone realises their point is not very well thought out at all and they use that line as a way to back down but so as to call the argument a draw. Then they probably go and use your side of the argument against someone else and end up using the same line again because they can't back it up as well as you did because they don't have that point of view anyway.

[gazzyk1ns]

Each case on its own merits, of course, some children have wonky hormones that make them satan

Oh right, I see, so you're a doctor specialising in the field of how hormones can affect behaviour patterns in young people, ARE YOU!?

Heh, that's one of my pet hates.

[Still Not George]

Also, while i'm bitching...

As an aside, if I even sniff a single post along the lines of "Well, if you had children you'd understand..." then I shall know Verbwhores is finally dead.

As an aside, that's extremely smug and intolerant.

CONTEXT.
http://chilled.cream.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=95087&highlight=#95087
'Most Violent Game Ever' Causes Boy to Kill Friend (Here we go again)


But frankly, the day someone posts something as utterly irrelevant to a discussion as WIYHCYU on Verbwhores and isn't shot down, this place will finally have reached the stage where 'state of the board' threads have meaning.

[Pinball]

Blair's contribution to the war against terrorism to make the world a safer place. There's a fucking argument that's lost its meaning (if it ever had any that is).

[El Unicornio, mang]

The biggest insult that seems to get bandied about by right wingers here is "Liberal fag", which I don't understand because it implies that both being liberal and being gay is a terrible state to find yourself in (which, of course, to them, it is)

Also, why do people use "middle-class" as a preface to an insult? You never hear people say: "They were a right bunch of working-class twats"

[Pinball]

The biggest insult that seems to get bandied about by right wingers here is "Liberal fag", which I don't understand because it implies that both being liberal and being gay is a terrible state to find yourself in (which, of course, to them, it is)

Also, why do people use "middle-class" as a preface to an insult? You never hear people say: "They were a right bunch of working-class twats"

Being liberal is equated with being wishy washy and/or weak - a truly bullshit argument. Most right-wing Uber Tory types I know are just scared. Scared of immigrants, scared of other countries, scared of the mortgage rate going up, scared of losing their stock market investments. Scared. In short - cowards. Amusingly, "right-wing" is interpreted as being "hard". Old perhaps, but not hard.

[Johnny Yesno]

And if those little cunts throw any more eggs at my window they're going to find a lot of ground glass on their poxy climbing frames.

Ah, if you had chickens you'd understand...

[jutl]

CONTEXT.
http://chilled.cream.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=95087&highlight=#95087
'Most Violent Game Ever' Causes Boy to Kill Friend (Here we go again)

Yes, sorry - I wasn't trying to remove the context. I thought it spoke for itself. Judging by...

But frankly, the day someone posts something as utterly irrelevant to a discussion as WIYHCYU on Verbwhores and isn't shot down, this place will finally have reached the stage where 'state of the board' threads have meaning.

...it is indeed exactly what you meant. I can see why you might want to argue with someone who says that - they're likely to be letting their emotions cloud their judgement. Still, what you are saying is just as reactionary and closed-minded - ie that  anyone who tries to point out that parenthood has a profound effect on one's outlook is a priori an idiot with no point to make who deserves to be 'shot down'.  Still, I've already been accused of deliberate and extreme relativism today, so I'll shut up now.

[Kingboy_D]

Also, why do people use "middle-class" as a preface to an insult? You never hear people say: "They were a right bunch of working-class twats"

When I was 17/18 I self published a short-run fanzine, which while never an enormous sucess was a great deal of fun at the time. One day I was in the local pub promoting it and got talking to a hippy looking woman with dreads who asked for a look. The first thing she read was a short history of The Cure, which began with a sentance along the lines of "five middle class guys..." and on clocking the phrase "middle class" launched into a franky offensive rant, where she slagged off my fanzine for being funded by "mummy and daddy's credit card". In fact, It was funded through selling advertising space, which took me fucking ages and was a great deal of work.

That was back when i was quiet and timid and I just sulked off with my tail between my legs saying nothing. These days I'd probably tell her to get fucked and shove her class war up her arse.

Edit: the "more underground than thou" attitude really fucks me off. When i was in the London protest this March I handed out one of my Demo CDs to a lass called Becky, who was herself distributing a newspaper called "the Rub" which claimed to be "the alternative alternative paper".  A few weeks later I got an email from her saying she really liked the CD and loved the website, and asked if she could use some of my articles about Peak Oil.

In the reply I made the mistake of saying that the intention of the website was to bridge the alternative with the mainstream and take important information to a wider general audience. I never heard from her again, presumably because I used the word "mainstream" in the reply. What sort of fucking mentality is that? Issues like Peak Oil need to be recognised by the general public and discussed by as many people as possible, not be kept "secret" by a bunch of twats who think sitting around telling each other what they already know and saying "yeah man Bush is a right wankah" is doing something constructive. Twats who think hating "the man" and being "alternative" is little more than a fashion statement.

God damn it makes me angry.

[Pinball]

Yes, these issues have to be shouted from the hilltops, which means via the mainstream media. Ooh, how I giggled when BBC were covering the formerly secret Bilderberg Group. Now all we need is a John Humphreys interview to raise it with Peter Mendelsohn (oh sorry did I misspell?)

"And why are you a member of.." etc.

:-)