Is this a good example of a strawman argument in response to a Question?

Question

The Q w/added details: "Have U ever asked philosophy Q's about ideas U don't agree with to understand better why you disagree w/them?

This is part of my ongoing series of Q'.s that I design to ask to find out just why people in the category of philosophy post the Q's & A's they do, where giving A's are much preferred by many over asking Q's for reasons that we won't go into here.

Good A's to such Q's by others may agree with the ideas you disagree with. That is also part of rationally understanding the ideas you disagree with. Sometimes other people's defense of those ideas may be better expressed, etc."

The possible Strawman A in reply:
"Wow, no! I do not disagree with concepts without scrambling to find the supporting evidence--or lack of it--through my own resources. Often I already have a basis in knowledge & a strongly held opinion bec of that knowledge when I discover a concept I find disagreeable.

"But if I don't know why I disagree, I may spend weeks trying to determine why. In the mean time, I learn a great many other things along the way, and all those things add to my knowledge "bank" even if they only refer to things which I was not thinking of when I went looking.
But, I can see how asking a question here may be simpler. I guess I just prefer the reward of doing the work myself."

Folks, what do you think about the Answer? Pls stick to the Answer & not the Answerer who may have not known what a strawman is.

Where is it implied in the Q that the approach is simpler? Or that the asker is somehow being lazy, as the A to my Q suggests by describing the act of putting up the idea that they do not agree with up for Q&A. Also why is "to disagree (intellectually)" equated to "disagreeable" which has an entirely emotional connotation?

1 star, no A's yet , why?

To the stmt: "as to your whole general topic, yes one should learn opposing viewpoints, this is how you reinforce your own beliefs,", I add "or challenge by Question those beliefs." When we ask others a Q,are we ipso facto asking ourselves that Q too?

"Description of Straw Man
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a **distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.* * This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:


Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Examples of Straw Man

Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."
Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

"Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:
Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."
Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."

source of the description: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Answer 1

i would say its not in the category of strawman arguements, atleast that first guestion you asked was not, a strawman arguement overstates the opponents position,
i think it is a fallacy to state that answers seem more important then questions
but, you stated "Have you ever,,,," not "Why do you always,,,"
as to asking questions in the opposing viewpoints that you hold, to a specific topic, that would be an odd way to get a range of viewpoints,
if you simply asked the question in the view you have, you will get non-agreeing viewpoints
still to be a strawman you would have to overstate , go beyond your perceived view of your audience, not just state something you feel they would be against
such as, i am opposed to any physical hitting/discipline of children, and feel it should be illegal, and have criminal punishments
a starting strawman arguement to my position would be to say i believe if someone falls down and accidently bumps into their child and hits them, they should go to jail!

as to your whole general topic, yes one should learn opponsing viewpoints, this is how you reinforce your own beliefs,