I know he liked to publicize the exchanges where he got the best of someone, and bury the others, and that he was a far, far cry from a public intellectual. Still, he talked to folks about ideas, and that's something that we should have more of.
That should be something that we strive for, but I fear we'll see it less and less. Who'se going to want to go around and argue with people now?
I'm familiar with the "strawman" concept that it derives from, although in my experience this is typically presented as a logical fallacy.
What is the purpose of "steelmanning" a political actor's political perspectives?
What is this supposed to achieve?
Where did you and the people responding to this comment hear about this concept? Are there articles out there making the case for "steelmanning"?
tl;dr - good faith requires you to understand and do your best to represent the other side, not cherry pick sneaky "wins"
When I use the term my intent is to frame the opposing argument as strongly and clearly (and fairly!) as possible so that you can make your own point strongly and fairly. The critique of a "strawman argument" is a metaphor about arguing/fighting a training dummy instead of an actual enemy, usually by addressing only part of an argument or by ignoring context or using logical fallacies like motte and baily or false dichotomies. The idea is that it's very easy to look like your point wins when you fight the scarecrow; if it's actually a good argument face it off against the knight in armor actually fighting back.