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The Devil's Advocate's Advocate | The Point Magazine

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The first time I opened my mouth in college it was on the topic of devil’s advocacy.

The first time I opened my mouth in college it was on the topic of devil’s advocacy. It was September 1993, and we were having a policy discussion in my Core humanities class: the teacher asked whether we should allow people to make comments they don’t agree with, “just for the sake of argument?” No one could see what the problem with doing so might be, so I spoke up. I argued against, passionately and persuasively. I won the others over: for the rest of the year that class had a “no DA policy.” The argument I gave was that devil’s advocacy undermines the trust on which conversation is grounde

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