the devil’s advocate

Please explain to me why people feel the need to play the devil’s advocate? As in, you are discussing some issue and the person with whom you are discussing says, “well, if I can just play devil’s advocate for a minute…” And then goes on about hypothetical objections to your ideas for which he cannot argue convincingly, nor can he be asked to, because he wasn’t advancing the objections, he was merely “playing devil’s advocate”.

Dude. If you have objections to the ideas, say you have objections. And then stand behind them and provide some arguments for them. Don’t hide behind the devil. And if you don’t have objections personally, then why the hell are you making up hypothetical issues that may not exist? Do you have some childhood trauma that makes it impossible for you to simply agree with someone? Either you agree or you don’t or possibly you’re not sure if you agree without more data. But what the hell does the devil have to do with anything? No pun intended. Although you can join him there if you really want to continue being his advocate.

There. I feel better now.

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