Engaging with a Straw Man
So, let’s see now. It must be well over a year since I cut Aspartame out of my diet. Of course, being a stocky fellow all my life, for far too long taking “Diet” and “Sugar Free” products seemed like a good idea. Then I found out that not only was this additive an excitotoxin, but it also does the opposite of what it says.Have enough of it and it apparently makes you PUT ON weight. The reason? It allegedly makes you crave more food and more calories. Not only that but it dumbs you down, in much the same way as apparently Fluoride does. Find out more at http://www.dorway.com
What does all this have to do with the concept of ‘straw men’? Well, I encountered the use of one this week, and it was in relation to Aspartame. What this little anecdote will hopefully demonstrate is that many, many people are so conditioned to being their own sheepdogs, amongst the flock, that they actually don’t realise they are doing so.
Wind things back about a week. Went to the local ‘cash and carry’ to pick up some supplies, and my eye was caught by a dozen-bottle pack of Kingstone Press Pear Cider. Very reasonable price, and as their ordinary apple cider was already a hit at Cult TV Towers, well, why not try the pear variant?
The following day, and having been nicely cooled down in the fridge, I cracked open a bottle. I was hit by a clawing taste which immediately raised my eyebrows. This was a sweet cider, sure, but with a kickback that suggested something wasn’t right. Checking the label, my worst fears were confirmed – “Contains a source of phenylalanine.” In other words, this was likely to be Aspartame, or one of the other similar patented artificial sweeteners that have no place in the human food chain.
In the true spirit of crusadership, which those who have woken from their slumber will know only too well, I fired an email off to the manufacturers; the core of which was as follows:
“Phenylalanine is a neurotoxin and excites the neurons in the brain to the point of cellular death. ADD/ADHD, emotional and behavioural disorders can all be triggered by too much Phenylalanine in the daily diet.
“You are likely using one of the Phenylalanine brands such as Aspartame. The 1976 Groliers encyclopaedia states cancer cannot live without phenylalanine. Phenylalanine makes up 50% of Aspartame.
“In 2007, Sainsbury’s, M&S, and Asda all announced that they would no longer use Aspartame in their own label products. I really think you should follow their example.”
Surprisingly, within a couple of days, I received a letter back from the manufacturers. Included was a cheque for £15.00, which well-covered my initial outlay. I have to say that I admire them for having written back. That said, there are some clues in what they wrote which tell you things aren’t quite right.
First off, a confirmation that it WAS Aspartame in the pear cider. They explained the use of Aspartame as follows (and please note that, so far, I have yet to find any other cider on the market which contains it – let me know if you discover some so we can cut this practice off at the pass):
“Kingstone Pear Cider is a Medium Sweet Pear based cider of which the majority of sweetening comes from sugar. A small amount of sweetener is added to prevent the product becoming too thick and heavy.”
Stop there, deep breath, step back, and look again at this… “too thick and heavy” … ? Boy, the times I’ve cracked open a cider and had to ladle it out of its receptacle. Thank goodness for Aspartame, or else we’d be still have to use a spoon to drink it!
Ah-hem. Has to be said, if Aspartame was the ONLY answer to this problem, then every manufacturer would be using it. Ooops, I’ll stop there. I’ll be giving them ideas!
There was one other aspect to this reply letter which spoke volumes. Below the date it said, in bold and underlined, “Without Prejudice”. Those of you who have ever got into legal correspondence on any matter will know that, once this term is applied to a letter, then it means there’s a concern by the other party that the matter in question might end up in court.
So, little old me, noting the use of an excitotoxin in a bottle of cider, is causing concern to the manufacturers. Enough to anticipate me to, potentially, take matters further.
Just think what would happen if we all did this? Consumer pressure would soon take away the life-blood of Aspartame – by boycotting any products that contain it.
Which brings us to my ‘straw man’. With almost a whole case of pear cider in my possession, and the expense of it reimbursed, what to do? I decided to take the bottles to work to give away.
Knowing how suspicious some of my colleagues are of freebies, I emailed the office with a quick explanation of why I was giving them away, summarised as a ‘warning’ in a couple of sentences and with a link to http://www.dorway.com – that way there would be no coming back later to me when they discovered the Aspartame within the gift. After all, I didn’t want my own “Without Prejudice” letter coming from THEIR legal eagles! Paranoid? No, just careful!
It was at this point that the ‘straw man’ entered the scene. Someone decided they’d have a little fun, saying that I was absolutely right, that the cider WAS poison. Unfortunately, they then thought the height of hilarity was to send a Wikipedia link to the dangers of alcohol consumption.
There then followed a couple of brief emails which demonstrated that people are pre-programmed to defend the status quo. I think my email back was along the lines of “Ah-hah, the ‘straw man’ arrives”, which was then answered by telling me that the ‘straw man’ was in fact the ‘dangers of Aspartame’, and that they were only commenting on this ‘straw man’. And it was just a ‘bit of fun’.
This demonstrates the level of deflection from investigation that goes on in the mindset of the general population. I pointed out that the ‘straw man’ was actually them bringing up the ‘dangers of alcohol’, thus tarring my ‘dangers of Aspartame’ with the same brush. This is how a ‘straw man’ works – it creates a barrier between the actual topics in hand and those folk you’re trying to pass information to. In this case, we all know the dangers of alcohol, but the Aspartame is the unseen danger. By making it seem the argument is actually about the alcohol in the cider rather than anything else, people don’t see the points as being separate. They are lumped together in the mind; bowl the easy one over and the other, more difficult topic disappears from view, too.
Hence my point about members of the flock accidentally acting as their own sheepdogs. It might have been intended as a jokey response; what actually happened was that it closed down the possibility of people taking the initiative and investigating Aspartame for themselves.
That wasn’t the end of the matter though. A separate work colleague came up to me and revealed that my email had caused a lot of controversy. Being ever-optimistic, I said that was good; after all, anything which helps people question what they are told can only be a positive result. Oh, no, I’m informed, it was all about the alcohol in the cider. I should be thinking of all those poor tramps in the park killing themselves with the cheap alcohol from supermarkets.
It’s at this point that, at last, I realised the true power of a ‘straw man’. I hadn’t given the cider away because it was alcohol, but because it contained Aspartame. None of them were talking about Aspartame being the reason for parting with the drink for nothing. They had been completely distracted by blaming cider for causing drunken bums in their line of sight when walking around town.
In the same way as you see all politicians doing on the news, I got back on-topic and re-established this was all about Aspartame. As far as I was concerned, cider did not create the tramps, society created the tramps; in a free society it was their right to do whatever they liked, provided it didn’t interfere with anyone else in society. True libertarianism, basically. The tramps already knew the risk that alcohol caused to them, but they didn’t know what Aspartame did to them. People have decisions to make in whatever they do; all I was doing was providing links to information, so that another of their choices was INFORMED - in this case on the consumption of Aspartame.
The colleague stopped dead in his tracks, and scuttled away. What a very strange reaction, I thought. Had I made any progress on this? We shall see, but I reckon there’s going to be a long road to travel yet.
All in all, this has been another one of those ‘Eureka’ moments in my life. I’ve never thought of myself as a good debater, someone who could defend their point of view readily. Now I realise why… in most cases when I lost an argument, it was because, in the cold light of day, the course of the conversation had moved away from the point I was trying to make.
You have to be alert for what’s going on; mainly because some people have to win an argument, rather than reveal the truth. It’s not ‘cognitive dissonance’ as such, it’s the competitive nature of our society. In this little anecdote, the battle could ONLY be won by moving the topic to ground that the opponents were safe on. If they don’t know anything about the topic in hand, they can’t win the ‘game’.
I think the best way to sum this all up is by adapting a quote from iconic football manager Bill Shankly: “Some people believe the truth is a matter of life and death; I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
This entry was posted on 27/06/2009 at 11:54 am and is filed under General Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
