False Dilemmas and Straw Men

Dominating Discourses Book 9

By: Kenrick Cleveland

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This ninth e-book in the Dominating Discourses series teaches you about the black and white fallacy, also known as the false dilemma. It then moves on to explain the related straw man fallacy.

A false dilemma is created when someone collapses an often complex and nuanced situation into two polarized extremes, with no gray areas, thus trying to force a specific choice. You are taught not only how to recognize and break this fallacy, but also how to use it to your own advantage.

A related strategy is the straw man, where an opponent's position is pushed to an extreme to make it appear dangerous or ridiculous or both. Again, you are taught how to recognize and break the fallacy, and also how to engage it yourself when it is useful to do so.

These two powerful techniques are in very common use, and it is essential to be at least aware of them and prepared to overturn them if you don't want to be wrong-footed. But they can also be useful tools in your own arsenal when the situation is right.

This book is another jam packed powerhouse of persuasion through rhetoric.