The Steel Man Technique: How To Argue Better And Be More Persuasive
If you listen to the language used to assess any debate, you’ll find that there’s always an element of “winning”. The aim, to most people, is thus to have an argument that is better than the opponent’s. Failing which, you present one that sounds better than your opponent’s.
The incentive to come out ahead in a zero-sum game causes a lot of us to commit logical fallacies, whether intentional or not. The most common example of this is the straw man, where one side creates a caricature of the other side’s argument and engages with that. They undermine the opposition by attacking the weakest part of the argument.
That’s what happens when the sole purpose is to win. But if you’re interested in more than winning, and want to convince, there’s a better way.
Instead of substituting what someone else is saying with a lousy proposition, we’ll do better by reinforcing their basic argument.
