Devil’s Advocate

The last few weeks has seen an uproar—once again—in racial tensions in the United States, and with it has come along an interesting phenomenon:

People playing “Devil’s Advocate.”

Before I go further, let’s get on the same page with two things:

First, if the devil wants an advocate, they can afford a much better lawyer than you.

I’m not joking.

If we believe that there is a being that exists outside of space and time that has been walking around since before the dawn of humanity, commands legions of demons, and has power over the physical and spiritual realms around us, I promise you that they can pay for the best legal help ever, and it will not be you.

Secondly, being the advocate—the spokesperson—for the devil is not a good thing.

It means you’re aligning yourself with—as most religions understand it—evil, and arguing in favor of what you think the devil’s position would be in this instance.

Again, that’s not something that we should want to do.

It seems like every time some sort of horrific event happens people are climbing over each other to try to be the “Devil’s Advocate” in their circles.

We may hear things like, “I don’t agree with this, but let’s say XYZ were to happen.”

It might sound like, “Actually, I read somewhere that ABC is the cause for this!”

I’m speaking in generalities, so here’s an example:

Let’s say your kid falls over their bike and scrapes his face up. What should our response be?

We—as parents—should pick them up, dry their tears, clean off any blood they’ve got, maybe put a bandaid on them or give them some ice.

In this situation, a Devil’s Advocate might something like, “you know, I heard that irresponsible kids fall off their bikes,” or maybe “I’m not saying I would do it, but if they were my kid, I would tell them to go walk it off. They need to toughen up and learn to hold back tears at some point.”

Perhaps this person would say, “If you were really a good parent, you would have never let this happen.”

All three responses are devoid of empathy. All three responses are disingenuous.

All three responses are hurtful for both the person in pain and the one who is trying to clean them up.

If the Golden Rule is to treat others how we would want to be treated, would we want to be told any of these things?

Would we want people to sit there criticizing us, or would we want them to offer to help?

Even a simple, “are they okay?” shows empathy that seems to be devoid of our world today.

It is tiresome to see Devil’s Advocates as often as I do.

It is tiresome to see how they present arguments that have no answer.

To my earlier story, what do we say? How do we respond to those “arguments”?

“No, my child is responsible, they just had an accident”? “Well that’s not how we choose to raise our kids”? “I know I’m a good parent,” or “I don’t know how I could have prevented this”?

Any answer we may give to a Devil’s Advocate feels empty and is often met with deaf ears because the argument wasn’t made from a genuine place or a genuine concern.

Let’s fight against being Devil’s Advocates. It’s something I’ve had to “unlearn” over the years.

I thought I was helping people stretch their minds, or simply “being smart” and giving people arguments that they couldn’t answer.

But a mentor—after an especially heated discussion—pointed out to me that he didn’t want to talk to me anymore, not because he didn’t love me or value what I had to say, but because I was being purposefully antagonistic, and he had better things to do than fight with someone who just wanted to be correct.

That’s what it comes down to, though: being more right than the next person.

When I began to consider that even if I’m 100% assured of my position, there might be someone out there that is 101% assured in their (opposing) position, someone who has better statistics, better knowledge, more wisdom, than I do in whatever topic we were discussing, I began to realize that playing Devil’s Advocate doesn’t make much sense.

All that does is hurts relationships and create barriers.

Instead of trying to force people to defend their position we need to learn from those around us—even and especially those that we think have nothing to teach us.

Instead of trying to create the worst, most evil hypotheticals we can think of (remember, this is Devil’s Advocate) we asked people simply, “why?” we may learn something.

Instead of trying to excuse a murder, a killing, an injustice of any kind, what if we simply said to those around us, “I see you are in pain, and I’m here for you”?

Instead of trying to convince someone that racism doesn’t exist, what if we said, “I’m sorry you have experienced that”? No qualifiers. No, “but I think.” No other words except for sympathy and empathy.

How would those simple acts change the world?

When you see a Devil’s Advocate “in the wild,” as it were, call them out—tell them that their questioning and position isn’t welcome, even and especially if they are someone you have a relationship with.

Let’s bring wisdom and kindness back into public discourse.

Let’s let the world know that the devil doesn’t need any more “advocates.”

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