FC 149A, the placeholder, was all about a place that had me spellbound. Ladakh, which has two districts, Leh & Kargil, is indeed a territory that has the calming monasteries of Leh and, in sharp contrast, the strife-ridden terrains of Kargil. They will be etched in my memory for a long time.
FC 150 is another milestone and I owe all of you a debt of gratitude. You have been my mainstay and source of encouragement. Thank you all.
A few comments on 149A:
Krupa Murthy says: “Thank you for the brilliant anecdotal description of Leh and Ladakh which made me feel I am there! Glorious Day to you, who have shone in all your ‘Avatars’.”
Tarun Kunzru says: “Thanks for giving me a revisit with your post. Yes, it's truly fascinating! Acclimatizing to the height is critical for a good visit. Our country is indeed most fascinating, Leh/Ladakh being another great example. It's time for another visit!”
Lakshmi Raman says: “Yes, Ladakh is incredibly beautiful, Prasanna. I visited it some 25 years ago. It is the only place ever that I cried to leave when I did after 2 weeks there. And their music is lovely. But the signs of the ugly side of tourism were beginning to be seen. In fact, I had gone to attend a conference on 'Buddhism, tourism and culture'. We stayed on some more days at Choglamsar, visited monasteries, I walked up to the Indus River and felt such a sense of being part of history...”
💭 Some Straw Thoughts
All of us are familiar with the expression man of straw, which means a person who does not have the ability or the courage necessary to carry out a particular task or to fulfil a particular role. The word straw itself is indicative of a crop residue after the grain and chaff have been removed, and often used as compost. It is not like hay, which is considered animal feed. This helps us appreciate the import of the phrase ‘man of straw’.
Woman of straw has just about the same meaning, but it could also mean a timid woman or a kind of caregiver or housemaid. Many of you may recall seeing the film Woman of Straw, which featured Gina Lollobrigida as a nurse. If you haven’t seen it you could try this YouTube link 🔗Woman Of Straw 1964 Gina Lollobrigida & Sean Connery
There are situations where no one is keen to do an unpleasant or hard task, and so they resort to drawing lots by holding pieces of a straw of varying length, with only the ends poking out of the hand. The person who picks the shortest piece is then given that task that no one wants.
The shortest piece may well be not the last straw. It could be the first one if one picks it. But imagine the possibility of a man of straw drawing the short straw!
Last straw has a different connotation. The all too familiar idiom ‘last straw on the camel’s back’ is self-explanatory. It represents the tipping point in a series of events. Imagine a friendly conversation turning into a heated argument, and the tipping point could be when one of the guys hits the other in a fit of temper. The ‘last straw’ is also referred to as the turning point, or inflection point, when a significant or life-changing moment may occur. Barack Obama made the point when he said: “It depends on us, on the choices we make, particularly at certain inflection points in history; particularly when big changes are happening and everything seems up for grabs.”
A drowning man ‘Clutching at straws’ is a symbolic expression to illustrate the point that we desperately try to salvage a nearly hopeless situation. Keeping a brain-dead person on life support hoping for a miracle is one such situation. Clutching at the straws is about hanging on to some hope or a belief that everything will turn out alright in the end.
A straw man can be differentiated from a man of straw. While the latter stands for a person who lacks courage, the former is an analogy to a figure made of straw to resemble a man devoid of substance. A straw man is one who resorts to illogic and perhaps can outwit a man of straw. If the man of straw said “I don’t like to go rafting”, the straw man would say “I did not know that you suffer from hydrophobia”.
Straw man fallacy or straw man argument are synonymous in the sense that both are an informal fallacy, which means that the flaw lies with the arguer’s method of arguing rather than the flaws of the argument itself. The straw man fallacy avoids the opponent’s actual argument and instead argues against an inaccurate caricature of it.
Generally, scholars agree that the term originated with the idea of setting up a simplistic imagined opponent that’s easy to knock down, like a scarecrow or a military training dummy. You can stand in front of a scarecrow and say what you want, and it goes unchallenged, but it does not mean that you are making any sense.
A straw man argument is a very effective means of twisting out of context what a political opponent says. In 2008, when John McCain (a US presidential candidate) supported ‘research on stem cells gathered from embryos’ the opposing camp put out a statement that McCain is in favour of using unborn babies in medical research.
As another example, a statement is made that “In India, driving license should be given at the age of 16.” The straw man would say, “Are you now saying that a person 16 years old can go to a bar and drink? Should he or she be given the right to vote at 16? Next, you will say let them get married at 16!!” As you can well appreciate, the straw man fallacy lies in extending the age for a driving license to other unconnected matters with the intention of derailing the original proposition by his illogical arguments. Refuting a straw man argument can become quite tricky. One can either ignore it or put the record straight. Not an easy task.
Scribbr.co.uk gives a good example of the straw man fallacy:
Person 1: I think we should increase benefits for unemployed single mothers during the first year after childbirth because they need sufficient money to provide medical care for their children.
Person 2: So you believe we should give incentives to women to become single mothers and get a free ride from the tax money of hard-working citizens? This is just going to hurt our economy and our society in the long run.
There’s this clamour about how Starbucks ‘waged a war on Christmas!!’ Apparently, Starbucks decided to write ‘Happy Holidays’ on their cups instead of ‘Merry Christmas’. A certain sector of the society, as well as many media outlets, were outraged, accusing Starbucks of waging a war on Christmas. A straw man fallacy indeed.
In our ordinary life, we come across such fallacious arguments. If a person says “I prefer Chinese to Thai cuisine” the straw man would say “Why do you hate Thai food? What is so special about Chinese food?”
Husbands ought to be careful what they say to their wives. A wife asked her husband if she should wear a saree or a salwar suit. The husband said, “Wear a salwar, you look slim in it”. She retorted, “Are you telling me that I look fat in a saree?”
Likewise, If the husband says “This pie reminds me of my mother”, the wife could turn around and say “Are you telling me that the pie I make is nowhere near the one your mother made?”
Interestingly, a straw man illogic can be woven into a narrative to distract the audience's attention. Apparently, Richard Nixon, while dealing with accusations of certain wrongdoings, told the audience that he would never return a dog named ‘Checkers’ that he got as a gift which has endeared his children. Apparently, this appealed to the audience and changed public opinion about him, though no one had accused Nixon of improperly accepting the dog as a gift.
Dear readers, I hope you find these stray thoughts on straw interesting. Let me end this in a lighter vein.
I asked my friend if he knew what a straw man argument was. He said...
"What, do you think I'm stupid or something?"
Ciao
Many congratulations on completing yet another milestone!! 150 articles done and yet you made it look so easy!! You are becoming a RK Laxman in your own right!!
I guess all of its husband's are straw men pretty much everyday!!
Incidentally in the corporate world we also use the term straw man for a draft presentation or proposal. Something that can be built upon or fine tuned into a full presentation.
Here's to many more straws as you approach a double hundred!!
I am baffled as to what levels of scholarship you reach to make your writings reach the summit and make it interesting to the ordinary and the intellectual, the stray and the strawlwart(pun intended!)
Have a pun weekend 🤪