More than 85,000 Likes for the notion that a student who makes a devil's-advocate argument is "arguing from the perspective of evil."https://twitter.com/vox00_/status/1383047575608119296 …
That's very valuable, though, and very different than the claim that even arguments not made in good faith (i.e. the devil's) are generally useful in a substantive manner. That's not really true even in the ideal (fierce debate requires commitment to advancing the substance) and+
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..in practice, that DA skill set is just showing up as (now platform-amplified) contrarianism, reply-guys who don't do their homework, and easy QT dunking by (me too!) big accounts. We should discourage that in our pedagogy and practice, imo.
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To make this more concrete, what if I think Israel's military occupation of W. Bank is justified. I might play devil's advocate (w/ myself and like-minded) by trying to imagine arguments against just based on my knowledge, but w/o necessarily reading up on BDS.. Not productive?
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