There are many times when people will attempt to refute with a counterargument, but will simply have a bad argument. Chapter 7 discusses the counterarguments: ridicule and a strawman.
Ridicule is insignificant in an argument. It doesn’t help or really do anything in a discussion but shows how immature and demeaning the speaker is. A person will use ridicule when they are incapable of thinking of an appropriate response for a counterargument. Ridicule is meant to make the other person upset and make them feel belittled. An example of ridicule is:
Student: I think you made a mistake on the problem.
Teacher: Do you think you are Albert Einstein now? Did you not fail the last quiz?
Here the teacher chose to avoid facing the mistake that was brought his attention and instead chose to humiliate and belittle the student.
A Strawman is when a person makes a claim, and the other person refutes it by putting words in that person’s mouth. An example of a Strawman is:
Bob: Cupcakes are unhealthy for you.
Betty: So are you saying that I’m fat?
Bob: I said nothing like that!
Betty’s claim is a strawman because she blatantly put words into Bob’s mouth.
These are good examples. I feel like those counter arguments happens daily no matter how hard you try not for it to happen, especially the strawman one. In the first one, I feel like a lot of people like making a person feel bad because they want to. The teacher one is a good example because I've seen it a couple times, just not between a student and a teacher. After you do something wrong, it will just haunt you because other people will mention it again. For strawman, I think a lot of people try to say something but accidentally put it in a bad way, so the other person would misunderstand.
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