Arguments

Some years ago, I knew two different men who had both grown up in the same state (for the purposes of this discussion, I will refer to this state as 'the state of confusion') in a different part of the country from here. Both of them happened to be gregarious individuals, and both of them were good friends. At one point, 'Tim' got very irritated at 'Bill' (I suspect that he just didn't get as much chance to talk as he wanted when the other one was around--I should probably point out that, although I am not a licensed psychiatrist, my diagnosis is that Tim was somewhat insecure. He got a sense of self-worth by getting people to listen to him. He would rather that you argue with him--because at least then he knew you were listening--than that you pay attention to someone else. Therefore, another talkative individual, like Bill, took an opportunity away from him to boost his self-esteem) . Tim muttered to me that, "Bill talks too much." I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but it irked me that he would say such a thing (it was kind of like GM criticising Ford for making too many cars, you know? and about somebody from his home state). I replied, "That seems to be a common trait among people from the state of confusion." Tim got very upset with me, and told me that, "By saying that, you have not only insulted me, but you have insulted..." and he named off two other mutual friends. Every time he saw me for the next several days, he had something to say about my comment, each time getting a little further from the original remark. Finally he said something that I couldn't argue with at all, but really had nothing to do with the statement that had upset him so much. "So you see? Not everyone from the state of confusion is exactly alike." Well, duh! But he had convinced himself that I had said everyone from the state of confusion was exactly alike. I reminded him of the original conversation, he opened his mouth to argue (again), but I knew that he was going to point out that, although he really couldn't argue that he talked too much, or that Bill talked too much (especially since he was the one who pointed that out), the other two friends were not nearly so verbose, so I cut him off, and said, "...and that's obviously true, half the people I know from the state of confusion talk too much!" He didn't talk to me for three days. And he never criticised Bill again (at least, not close enough to me that I could hear it).
The point of the story is not to show how clever I am (believe me, most of my arguments don't go nearly that well), but just to illustrate the idea of a 'strawman argument.' Basically, when one has a deep-rooted belief in something (say, Bill and I are nothing alike), but then an argument against their belief crops up that they don't know how to argue against (like, wait a minute, both of you talk all the time), so they (consciously or unconsciously) morph the argument into something they can fight against (what do you mean, you think Bill and I are exactly alike?). In other words, I can't fight your soldiers, so I'll set up some strawmen that I will attribute to you, and I will knock them down and show everybody that I can beat you. I want to point out that, just because someone sets up a 'strawman argument,' it doesn't necessarily mean that their original position was wrong. Sometimes they just don't have the fortitude to stand up to an argument that seems big and scary.
One of the problems that people run into is that we have a tendency to take things personally that we really shouldn't. I've known groom's mothers to argue with the bride over what color the bridesmaid's dresses should be, and both of them wind of very upset (just in case you didn't know: the bride chooses the bridesmaid's dresses. Period. The bridesmaids can sometimes get away with saying, "Oh, but I don't look good in that color--can't we wear something a little more..." but, the groom's mother? out of her purview. She has no say). Neither one of them should take the other one's opinion personally, though. Look, girls start planning their weddings before they start school. Unfortunately, mothers often start planning their son's wedding before he starts school, so when the blessed event actually happens, both have deep-rooted plans that often have only one thing in common: the groom. Mom needs to take a back seat, though, she's had her day. Of course, sometimes the biggest thing the groom's mother wants to change is the bride...
The point is, that when we take it personally that someone disagrees with us, then our own sense of self-worth gets caught up in winning the argument. Sometimes we resort to any dirty trick to win the argument, including setting up strawmen.