Playing devil's advocate. Can I discuss this here?

It would be much more useful to teach young people empathy with an experience they struggle to understand as they are not affected by and the skill of listening

Completely agree.

No it doesn't and it expresses the post-modern, anti-scientific and troubling notion that all points are valid and all perspectives are equal and should be given equal consideration.

And I think it shouldn't be used in educational situations.

It would be much more useful to teach young people empathy with an experience they struggle to understand as they are not affected by and the skill of listening rather than arguing for the sake of it .

I have only ever seen playing DA as an expression of privilege or a detachment from an issue that one can only have when one is not directly negatively affected.

In other words it is trampling all over other people's lives, identifies and lived experiences "for the sake of argument".

It isn't called "playing" DA for nothing - it makes a rhetorical game out of social injustice.

Cheap and nasty and identifies the person as a privileged fuckwit who is doubly insulting because they are simultaneously dismissive of an issue whilst setting themselves up as the authority as to how the subject should be discussed by people it actually matters too.

It is a form of bullying/teasing IMO and nothing more.

basil - yeah, but then, is it appropriate in a classroom setting? I have a student who is struggling because she feels done down by it. And I do think that is more common with girls than boys, because as a rule, girls are taught not to argue, and therefore they find it hard to do this. I really hate the way it works.

I admit, I know I do it automatically because I was brought up that way - and I'm sure tonde is right it's an expression of privilege - but I feel uneasy about it the more I think about it.

Something I find annoying is that playing devil's advocate is made hugely important in our education system. It is how a lot of people are taught to think.

Agree. Rhetoric is more valued in this society than evidence. (See Farage, Nigel) It forms the basis of our whole journalistic culture - for and against, Today Programme, the Moral Maze, BBC 'balance'. That there are two positions and they must be necessarily adversarial and whoever deploys the best rhetorical devices is the winner.

Playing devil's advocate is a way that (usually the privileged) get to hone their linguistic tricks. It's not interesting, engaging or attractive.

Something I find annoying is that playing devil's advocate is made hugely important in our education system. It is how a lot of people are taught to think.

I can see it has a certain amount of value in a classroom but it also makes me quite uneasy.

I refuse to engage with people playing devil's advocate and I tell them so.

I tend to say that playing DA is to respectful discussion what sarcasm is to wit - the lowest form.

I generally follow up with saying that it is just a slippery way of expressing offensive views that a person is not quite honest enough to 'own' but dishonest enough to hold.

I then change the subject.

People who play DA are a waste of time. They are bargain basement entitled fuckwits.

(disclaimer - I don't really think sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and think it can be funny and self-deprecating but also nasty and cheap)

I hadn't seen red pill until that link. Jeez, what a load of tosspots. To strangle a metaphor they appear to see themselves as suns around which tiny planets (women) are meant to revolve either glowing in the summer of their approval or, more often, freezing in the winter of their disapproval.

Of course the only real thing about the above is that they really do believe the sun does shine from their arses.

Before t'internet, despite having plenty of experience of sexism and misogyny in my life, I had never quite believe that men (so-called) like that actually existed. Pure cartoon characters.

Gosh.
Thinking about it, I don't know many women who do the DA stuff. One or two who did, but they were student politicians in very male environments.

From my personal experience, yes, men do indeed do it in all male company too. Don't know if it's specifically a dominance thing; I've done it with friends/drinking acquaintances when we're trying to sort out views. Including Schrodinger's Rapist, which elicited some "How could anyone think like that".

I used to be rather right wing, though libertarian rather than authoritarian. and I've certainly argued from a radical viewpoint... or what the FCS saw as radical, anyway.

I use reddit too. There are some great subs like HistoryPorn, AskHistorians and ExplainLikeIm5 but my god there's some awful ones too. I unsubbed from the defaults and stick to the nice subs and MorbidReality. There's TheBluePill which exists only to mock TRP if you feel the need for a swift antidote.

I go on Reddit quite a bit. I love the creepy ghosty story bits but it is mostly young american males who spend all day watching porn and playing computer games so many boards frequently descend into smut then outright misogyny (loads of racism and homophobia too).

It can be really depressing, however there is nearly always people who stand up to any 'off' comments and this really cheers me up and I think is on the increase. The Red Pill is largely regarded as a big joke over there from the little I've seen, but the ones who do believe really believe.

I've read stories of how they have asserted their dominance over their girlfriends (including driving home from a theme park leaving her stranded because she sent a text to someone when she should have been paying attention to him) and considering vasectomies so a golddigger won't be able to trap him with a child. Frightening stuff.

The women's boards on that site are

So does anyone ever go on those funny sites and play Devil's Advocate?

I cant see how needing anyone is healthy at all. Do they know 'nowt about co-dependency?

I feel secure in the fact that DH wouldn't dissolve into a quivering mess of incompetency if anything ever happened to me. I know DS would be taken care of physically and emotionally. Cant really ask for more than that can I?

Not very surprising.

You know what pisses me off? It's perfectly culturally acceptable for a man to want a woman but not to need her. In fact, men who need women are often seen as a bit wet.

Yes, they're trying to believe that human behaviour can be predicted and controlled to an extent that it is not, then getting angry at women for not being controllable and predictable.

Anyway, I am not advising anyone to read their actual stuff, but there are articles commenting on its existence.

Almond That reddit site is just but equally hilarious.

Modern Women have nothing of lasting value to offer men"

The most common denominator in the comments appears to be the anger at the fact women are not dancing to their tune. It makes them angry,scared and hurt. Women moving beyond their control is seen as a personal slight.

I think if I got sufficiently irritated by this I'd say what Kasey said.

It is a dominance thing I think. It is saying 'let me define the terms of the discussion and then watch you jump through whatever hoops I've set you.'

at basil.

almond - jesus, that's creepy.

When people come on here sometimes and go on about evo psych, it isn't just an isolated incidence that a few men are using evo psych to argue against feminism. There is a whole section of the men's right movement who believe in an evo psych based philosophy that they have developed, which they try and live by, judge and predict male and female behaviour by, and control other people by using. This includes sexual partners and potential sexual partners, but isn't limited to picking up women.

The best known of these 'philosophies' is the red pill. They have a reddit and various sites