Decryption: why so many people are “devil’s advocate”

Article published May 8, 2021

You must have heard this before in the evening, in a discussion between co-workers, or simply by dangling your ears during any situation involving social interactions.

You heard it, yes, the one that opens the discussion from a (falsely) innocent:

“I go to be the devil’s advocatebut … “

It is he who will say that, all the same, he raises doubts as to whether a child raised by two women is deprived of knowing his father.

Or the one who will say that we should think about the consequences of the false sexual assault allegations before we put all men in the same basket. He is also the one who still wonders if even whites would not suffer discrimination.

“Being the devil’s advocate”, from rhetorical gimmick to self-righteous trolling

To be the devil’s advocate is to defend an opinion in which we do not necessarily believe and that we know how to go in the opposite direction to the majority or to the people in front of us.

Basically, it is a rhetorical gimmick. But it is clear that in certain circumstances one also gets the impression that it’s an easy provocation, a way to get us off our hinges. Troll, full size, with sound and image.

Cassandre Begous, a PhD student in political science specializing in gender issues, has already observed these situations, particularly with regard to her experience as a trans person:

“As I’ve experienced in my career, he’s been at parties with a guy generally my age, who appears in good faith on feminist and LGBTQI + issues; that he wants, for my sake, to tell me “no, but if the gender does not exist, we could say that there is no need to take hormones” and that he will almost find a solution to my transience, fast, like this, in a party. “

He explains itit is up to these people to do it “a thought experiment” :

“Since he is not interested, he is of the order of abstraction. But it can be taken very violently for a trans person like me, because the abstraction of him has really concrete realities that apply to my daily life, it infringes my rights. This is not a thought experiment for me. “

For my part, during discussions with illustrious strangers, friends of friends crossed in the evening, I think back to certain exchanges on marriage for all, or on the opening of PMA to female couples. I think back to how tired and angry I came out of those discussions for having to do it justify my experience, the validity of my experience in front of people who just wanted a debateand not at all eager to question their worldview or privileges.

“These arguments may be a game for you, but for many people in the room, it’s their lives that are in question.”sums up Juliana Britto Schwartz very rightly in an open letter published on feminist and aimed at the privileged who enjoy being the devil’s advocate.

The reflection of the opposition between reason and emotion

What emerges when we look at this notion of the devil’s advocate, is that it highlights the opposition between reason and emotion. “A very Western dualism According to Cassandre Begous:

“In the Western philosophical tradition we have reason on the one hand, emotion on the other, masculine on one side and feminine on the other. It means that reason is masculine and emotion feminine, but also that reason cannot coexist with emotion. “

This observation highlights the intellectual approach of a person who will take the place of the devil’s advocate in a debate or even in a simple discussion: “Whoever assumes the role of the rational will suddenly consider himself protected by emotion, will consider that any emotional objection will be outside the intellectual field, rig the game from the beginning »Analyzes Cassandre Begous.

The Devil’s Advocate he allows himself the beautiful role by putting himself at a good distance from his subject. He positions himself as a neutral and objective observer. A very practical posture to tell the background of his thinkingbut also to make observations that can describe how “not politically correct” to keep them away.

But say in quotation marks what “we would not have the right” to say at all does it really allow you to denounce a point of view? Or does this just put the emphasis on the allusion?

Yet even being the devil’s advocate can be a very healthy intellectual approach – “It’s a process I sometimes use to form my own opinion”Cassandre Begous explains, before continuing:

“But it’s a critical thinking exercise that only works if you do it in good faith, if you’re willing to change your way of thinking. In a social environment where we are faced with people who will almost all agree with some basis of feminism, people who play the devil’s advocate will know that their opinion will not necessarily be good. Welcome … e They are not so much the devil’s advocate as their own advocate.. “

Debate is allowed, even not answering

So what to do with the devil’s advocate? What behavior to adopt? Cassandre Begous sees it as a good opportunity to educate:

“What I’m going to tell that person is the topic that will stay in his head. It is almost a power: when someone becomes the devil’s advocate, he also gives us the keys to be offered a certain vision of the world, against which he will have to justify himself. “

But It is also possible to tell yourself that you don’t want to set foot in a partial debate. That we have no energy or time to waste trying to convince a person for whom the experience of discrimination will remain, after all, very theoretical.

For my part, I want to be able to choose not to be overwhelmed by anger while having fun. If my emotions immediately disqualify my words, what’s the point of bothering?

And once the debate is over, the devil’s advocate can continue his life, satisfied with his experience, while I just have to review all the arguments that I have not succeeded or that I have not had time to advance and to endure the nervousness and fatigue that come with it.

Sometimes, often, we have better things to do than answer the devil’s advocate.

Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels