Steelman

Be a better Superhero than Ironman!

Welcome to Polymathic Being, a place to explore counterintuitive insights across multiple domains.  These essays take common topics and investigate them from different perspectives and disciplines to come up with unique insights and solutions. 

Today's topic is about making you into a superhero! We are going to help you improve your strength and agility. You’ll be able to soar above everyone else. People will look for you to solve wickedly complex problems. Even better, it helps to avoid conflicts to begin with and improves your interpersonal engagements. We are going to teach you how to be Steel[wo]man¹ (pick which one you want)

Steelman vs. Strawman

Introduction

Before we get to Steelman we need to better understand their archnemesis: Strawman! ²

This terrible calamity of a personality intentionally misrepresents everything you say. Strawman starts with haughty disdain and often leads every argument with, “So what you’re saying is…” followed by a concoction of absurdity that you never said nor would ever say.

Those familiar with Jordan Peterson will likely remember the infamous interview with BBC’s Cathy Newman where she became Strawman and used this line of questioning incessantly.

The interview and subsequent fallout did give the internet a plethora of memes to work with and brought the nefarious nature of Strawman to prime-time television. So who is our nemesis Strawman based on?

If it wasn’t clear by now, Strawman is named after their superpower, sometimes referred to as an intellectual malady, known as a strawman argument. This is a particularly insidious informal fallacy of refuting an argument that is different from the one actually under discussion.

The thing with a strawman is it already starts from the intellectually lowest point. You aren’t looking to understand or even appreciate the argument. It’s a form of argument where you are building up the worst representation possible. You’re merely trying to find the fastest way to prove the other person wrong and prove yourself right.

But you’ll never actually discredit their argument if you argue against the wrong thing. It might work in a Twitter mob and it underlies a lot of cancel culture and especially those silly claims of calling anyone who disagrees a Nazi.

It also doesn’t allow you to know if you’re wrong! What if our simple narrative is missing the full context? What if the other person knows something that I don’t know? What if they have a solid point, which they often do, that needs to be acknowledged and might merely need a reframe to shift their perspective?

The easy path is to strawman and shut everything down. It’s behind 90% of the rubbish online and when those five little words, “so what you’re saying is” pop up you are almost guaranteed to be facing (or being) Strawman. Like most villains, you ended up looking a bit of a fool taking this route.

The exceptionally more difficult proposition is to be the superhero and actual Steelman the argument. Just like our villainous anti-heroes in the comics took the easy path while the superhero had to struggle to do what’s right, so too with the difficulty of taking on the mantle of Steelman.

Superhero Steelman

“You win a debate with a better argument, not by force.”

-Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience: That's Why You Have One

In contrast to Strawman which aims to discredit, aspiring to steelman an argument means you’re working to ensure you have the strongest form of the other’s position. If done well, you should be able to argue their case better than they can.

Think about that for a minute. You might completely disagree but you can still make their argument better. Only then can you honestly debate their points because you are now arguing against real points, not ones you invented to make them look bad.

Sometimes it just starts with a simple question like, “Help me understand this point a bit better.” Other times it’s just listening and letting them form their arguments. You’d be amazed at how quickly someone will realize the absurdity of what they’re saying when you give them the time to speak their thoughts.

For example, whenever I’m in the position of facing something I’d rather just discount, I have to think about Daryl Davis. He’s a Black jazz musician who intentionally and deliberately got to know members of the KKK. These were people who hated him for who he was. Yet by just listening, he convinced over 200 members, including some very senior ones, to give up their robes.

For 30 years, Daryl Davis has spent time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. He says 200 Klansmen have given up their robes after talking with him.

It’s a fantastic story, not about fighting bad ideas, but about listening and letting the people hear the absurdity of those ideas coming out of their mouths. He didn’t have to strawman, and he didn’t have to even debate. He just had to listen. That’s the first step of becoming Steelman.

The next step is a little easier though not something we do often. It’s the ability to logically structure ideas and insights into sound arguments. We’ve dabbled with a few of these topics in the past and it forms the core of our Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn foundation here on Polymathic Being.

Do You Really Think Critically?

It’s also part of our construct of Systems Thinking where we embrace humility to accept we don’t know as much about the topic as we think.

Systems Thinking

Lastly, it’s crucial to how we look to intentionally reframe problems so we have a better understanding of what the true problem is as we explored in The Enemy’s Gate is Down.

The Enemy's Gate is Down

These are all essential elements to better Steelman an argument and they’re all challenging to do in their own right. It’s even harder when you’re talking about moral, ethical, or politically charged topics. It takes time and like Army Rangers say, Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast! In this case, it means better discussions and solving the challenges we face.

Summary

If you take the time to be the Steelman superhero of the story you’ll find that you can learn a lot about what’s driving wedges in our dialog. There are so many more benefits to taking this approach as well:

• At a minimum, you’ll be known as someone who genuinely cares and listens.

• You’ll also have the confidence that you’ve debated the right argument.

• Lastly, you’ll likely learn a whole lot more in the process.

Even better, you’ll avoid what this meme below captures:

“Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, ‘Is this person mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives?’ If not there is no point to argue.”

What we do with steelmanning is to make sure we aren’t that person. Taking on the aspiration of Steelman challenges us to improve our mental strength and agility and enables us to soar above everyone else and be the hero people look for to solve complex problems.

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Further Reading from Authors I Appreciate

I highly recommend the following Substacks for their great content and complementary explorations of topics that Polymathic Being shares.

• Goatfury Writes
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• Cyborgs Writing
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• Educating AI
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1. Going forward I’m just going to use Steelman and go with it. Mostly because that’s what it’s called and more importantly did you know that the word “man” actually started as the gender-neutral term for a person? Wo-man was a female human and Wer-man was a male human. That’s where we get the term Werewolf.

2. See Footnote #1