darthmelyanna:

cloama:

angstravaganza:

i hate white men who say they’re ‘playing devil’s advocate’. i’m like: the devil already has lots of advocates, and they all look like you, and this isn’t a fun game.

They Might Be Giants said: You can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding.

Let’s chat about what a “devil’s advocate” was originally.

When the Catholic church wanted (wants? not sure if this is still practice) to canonize a candidate for sainthood, they assigned someone to argue AGAINST canonizing that person. This person’s job is to try to dig up dirt on someone they literally think should be a saint. It was not arguing excuses for, like, Nazis.

H.W. Fowler wrote, “far from being the whitewasher of the wicked, the [devil’s advocate] is the blackener of the good.” This term got totally twisted around because hey, here’s a term that lets me argue an abhorrent position without having to take the consequences of it.

Let’s stop using it this way and stop letting people use it this way. It’s a garbage rhetorical device.