Know Your Propaganda – Straw Man – The Art of Misrepresentation

(Stillness in the Storm Editor) In the following article, Shem from Discerning The Mystery offers some great insight about the straw man fallacy. While this might seem like some obscure academic reference, I can assure you that almost everyone succumbs to this kind of thinking from time to time. Briefly, raw information combined with interpretation produces a subjective experience of any data set—the automatic aspect of our philosophic nature. Facts or information alone are devoid of meaning, but when a fact or data point enters the field of our awareness, the automatic aspects of consciousness (the subconscious and superconscious) go to work. This “personalizes” the fact, producing emotions, insights, and inferences. For example, a batch of cookies baking in the oven often produces good feelings, and a desire to eat them. The smell of the cookie itself is the raw data, the fact, which is interpreted subjectively to produce secondary sensations that we normally associate with that smell. What this means is that our subjective experience acts as an intermediary between objective reality and what we perceive. We make decisions and choices from our subjective experience, not reality directly. As such, ensuring our perceptions, interpretations, and conclusions are accurate is incredibly important. In most instances, confrontations about ideas is not specific to the fact itself, it’s focused on our inferences of the objective fact. We tend to confuse our interpretations with reality itself, which can lead to unproductive conversation if we aren’t humble and thinking critically.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

 ― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

So what does this have to do with straw man fallacies and propaganda?

As Shem reveals below, one of the tactics of our would-be masters is to make communication between people difficult, which prevents us from sharing truth amongst ourselves for collective upliftement.

The term describing this miscommunication is called complementary schismogenesis, coined by Gregory Bateson.

Bateson observed that when people speak the same language, unless there is a good level of communication rapport present between them, two people, or more, will exchange statements, and misunderstand each other. Then, as an individual feels they weren’t properly heard, they will speak to the misinterpretation, often causing even further confusion. Simply put, two people could be talking about the same thing, all while thinking they are disagreeing with each other. Take a moment to consider how often this happens in your own life. 


This language barrier is exacerbated by intolerance and emotionally charged exchanges—when people refuse to hear people out, and react to what they think another person said.


The high-paced nature of modern life, and a slow degradation of philosophic skills in the population, creates a condition where individuals can become heavily image trained, or rigidly focused on one set of terms or rhetoric to describe their field of interest. Add a healthy mix of prejudicial bias at an ideological level, and when discussion finally begins, likely the only result will be lack of discourse or a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas.


In other words, people in all walks of life, have forgotten how to share ideas and be respectful with others, to listen honestly, and develop social graces that allow for misunderstandings to be clarified. Non-confrontational communication methods are desperately needed, everywhere in society. (source) 

In other words, the current state of human consciousness provides plenty of fertile ground for miscommunication. The powers that be know this, and by consciously misrepresenting a person in an argument, debate, or exchange, they can paint someone as crazy or idiotic. Onlookers are the target, as the impression of idiocy makes them believe what someone is saying shouldn’t be believed.

This happens frequently on news services like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. Either a newscaster or a guest will misinterpret what the other is saying, and respond to their incorrect interpretation, instead of gaining clarity. 

Consider the following example, where Bill Nye persistently misinterprets Tucker Carlson in the following Fox News clip.

Source – Discerning The Mystery

by Shem El Jamal, September 15th, 2017

When we refer to a ‘logical fallacy,’ we are referring to logical flaws used by either those who are intellectually unaware or those who are deliberately deceptive toward the unaware. These fallacies are typically used to deceive the unawakened audience. On a larger scale they are regularly used by the Cabal and their media apparatus to psychologically manipulate the thoughts and opinions of the world’s population to maintain global control.

Related post: Tips on Discernment – Discerning the Self – Discussing the Vital Lesson of Self-Evaluation

The specific fallacy we are discussing here is known as the Straw Man tactic. This fallacy can be a particularly deceptive tactic in that it is not as blatant as other fallacies, but before getting into detail, let’s get some definition on the subject.

Straw Man 

Description: Substituting a person’s actual position or argument with a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of the position of the argument.

Logical Form:
Person 1 makes claim Y.
Person 2 restates person 1’s claim (in a distorted way).
Person 2 attacks the distorted version of the claim.
Therefore, claim Y is false.

Explanation: Edwin has ignorantly mischaracterized the argument by a) assuming we evolved from pond scum (whatever that is exactly), and b) assuming “fact” means “certainty”.

Example #2:
Zebedee: What is your view on the Christian God?
Mike: I don’t believe in any gods, including the Christian one.
Zebedee: So you think that we are here by accident, and all this design in nature is pure chance, and the universe just created itself?
Mike: You got all that from me stating that I just don’t believe in any gods?

Explanation: Mike made one claim: that he does not believe in any gods. From that, we can deduce a few things, like he is not a theist, he is not a practicing Christian, Catholic, Jew, or a member of any other religion that requires the belief in a god, but we cannot deduce that he believes we are all here by accident, nature is chance, and the universe created itself. Mike might have no beliefs about these things whatsoever. Perhaps he distinguishes between “accident” and natural selection, perhaps he thinks the concept of design is something we model after the universe, perhaps he has some detailed explanation based on known physics as to how the universe might have first appeared, or perhaps he believes in some other supernatural explanation. Regardless, this was a gross mischaracterization of Mike’s argument.

Exception: At times, an opponent might not want to expand on the implications of his or her position, so making assumptions might be the only way to get the opponent to point out that your interpretation is not accurate, then they will be forced to clarify.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/169/Straw Man-Fallacy

CONTINUE READING @ discerningthemystery2000plus.blogspot.com

Partial Image Credit NCMallory

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Source:

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