Did she read my article? Reply to Elizabeth Rohr’s ‘Response to ‘The Mexican social unconscious—Part I: The roots of a nation’ and ‘Part II: Politics and group analysis’ by Reyna Hernández-Tubert’

Abstract

I have just read Elizabeth Rohr’s (2021) response to my two-part article on ‘The Mexican social unconscious’ (Hernández-Tubert, 2021a, b). This generated mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, she has obviously spent much time and effort in writing it, and this is to be appreciated; she clearly knows Mexico and her account of recent events in my country is mostly accurate, although I cannot share her interpretation of such data. On the other, her account of what she deems to be my main argument is so alien to the meaning I intended to convey that it made me wonder if she had actually read my article, or what had she read in it, perhaps only her interpretation in her own terms, without trying to understand my argument, before expressing her disagreement with it. This type of reasoning is well-known in logic as the ‘straw-man fallacy’ (in this case a ‘straw-woman fallacy’), which occurs when someone takes another person’s argument and distorts or exaggerates it, turning it into an absurdity, and then attacks the first party and disqualifies her for having said what she never said. Such argumentative strategy may be summarised in the motto, ‘Turn your opponent into a straw man and then criticize him for being a dummy.’ 1167510 GAQ0010.1177/05333164231167510Group AnalysisHernández-Tubert: Response to Rohr research-article2023