I’ve read the definition, I’ve tried to figure it out, I feel so stupid.
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A strawman argument is where you deliberately take the weakest possible form of someone’s argument – a version that no one reasonable would support because it’s dumb as a bag of hammers – and defeat it. You then claim, since you’ve knocked down the strawman, you’ve defeated their position.
The problem with this approach, of course, is that the strawman was never being argued in the first place. Someone who defeats a strawman isn’t actually participating in the argument so much as lying about your position in order to make themselves look correct and you, therefore, look incorrect.
Contrast this with the steelman argument, where you take the strongest possible version of the opponent’s argument – one that’s even better than the actual argument that they’re presenting – and defeat it. By defeating the very best version of their argument you can conclusively say that their position is wrong.
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