The Devil's Advocate

In this modern world of social media, global connectivity and instant gratification, we have somehow, somewhere along the way lost the ability to play Devil's Advocate. When I was a younger man, in high school…in the previous millennium…it was common for teachers to assign students to advocate a position on a topic. This usually happened in history or civics classes, but not exclusively. A student would be tasked with researching a subject and putting forth an argument for that position. Other students would research and argue the counterpoint. The best teachers would have the students switching back and forth so that eventually all of their students would be thoroughly versed in the subject at hand, from every point of view. Those were the golden days of education.

Unfortunately, in many places this has fallen by the wayside. In today's world students are taught “the true way” by their teachers. Failure to learn the proper classroom dogma and parrot the approved doctrine is met with condemnation and ostracism. This is not a way to teach the next generation how to think, how to learn, how to live. This is how innovation dies. All that this will produce is a loyal follower. It will not produce a leader. We need to teach students how to argue their position, armed with information, so they can approach the world with informed passion. We also need to teach them how to listen, to not dismiss the opposite viewpoint. We need to teach them how to play Devil's Advocate.

Over the decades, since I was in school, I have gained many friends who have vastly different views on many subjects, not only different from me but from each other. I leaned how to disagree with people without treating them as the enemy. I learned to listen to people and reshape my view of the world from gained information and experiences. I helped change the opinions of my friends and they helped me to change mine. Where we couldn't change each other's minds, we agreed to respect each other's right to their own views and moved on. Still friends.

I believe it’s time to give the devil his due once again and play his advocate.