But…
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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I do love doing devil’s advocate where it helps me and my friends understand our position when faced with these questions. But I’m definitely not playing it all the time.
I think it depends. When someone starts playing "devil's advocate" with me about the US border when I literally have friends and loved ones being wrongfully imprisoned or deported, I'd say they get a negative score on the empathy meter.
Or people playing "devil's advocate" about trans people in sports when they themselves are not trans, I'd say the same.
In fact, I can't think of an example in which someone can play devil's advocate without being so far removed from the topic at hand that they'd perhaps benefit from forestalling sharing their opinion, though I imagine between friends might be such a case, as you said.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what "Devil's Advocate" means. It's literally the argument of the "Devil"
The way I've always used it was to lay out the arguments of my opposition, to predict how they'd think so I could prepare counters accordingly.
If somebody is claiming to play devil's advocate while voicing their own stances, they just know they have the wrong opinion on a topic and are trying to shield themselves from scorn.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/devil-s-advocate
You used it correctly.
This very thing, but I'm not so sure they know their position is wrong per se. They just know they won't be able to defend it.
I play devils advocate when people are talking about how to handle homeless population, taxes, etc., but if they try to debate human rights, I agree that they can f- off.
Homeless population debates are about human rights. People who dehumanize the homeless or NIMBYs who want them displaced are horrible people.
Yes, exactly, but we all have different solutions on how to deal with the underlying issue, or even what the underlying issue actually is. I take a different stance depending on the discussion with my friends so we can poke holes in the argument together and really understand the underlying issue together. That’s what devils advocate is really for.
I’m super progressive, so I think we should be having safe use sites, making all drugs legal. For the drugs that can kill from withdrawal, we should be supplying this at these safe use sites with the hopes of weaning them off. As for homes, we just don’t have enough. Get rid of these stupid parking lots in the cities that only ever have a dozen or so cars in them and just build subsidized housing.