I’m writing something about people who make idiotic incendiary statements that even they probably don’t agree with just to get a rise out of others and or some attention for themself. On message boards, of course, they’re trolls, but is the best word for those in academic circles provocateur or can you think of a better one?
(Examples are Ward Churchill, who I think is more a whore for his name in print than he is half believing of the idiotic comments he’s made on 9-11 and other issues, or on the more sophisticated [how about sophist? That could work too] Gore Vidal, who’ll make comments about how America had no business entering World War 2 even after Pearl Harbor or other nonsense that he’s way too intelligent to truly believe.)
If you don’t want to appear too polemical, then I would suggest devil’s advocate. Provocateur to me is too closely associated with the expression agent provocateur, with its idea of someone used by the authorities to encourage an impressionable but otherwise innocent person to commit a crime.
No, devil’s advocate has the wrong connotation. A devil’s advocate to me is someone who throws out contrary ideas not to get a rise but to point out potential problems with the idea. Provocateur is a perfectly good word for it. Shit-stirrer, if you want to be crude.
I am capable neither of crudity nor crudeness. Crudités, on the other hand, I will nibble on quite happily. And what, pray, is the point of going to the lengths of playing devil’s advocate unless it gives you a rise in addition to any didactic purpose it might have?
Ooh son, you gotta work on trying you some crudity and crudeness. Twixt the two they beat the everloving shit out of crudités by a quite considerable margin.
CG and I were engaging in a bit of banter taking the piss out of Otto’s stentorian “NO”. Thanks for pouring oil on the water, but it was perhaps misplaced…
Taking the piss out of Otto’s answer was misplaced as well, since he was correct. Devil’s advocate would definitely not be appropriate in this context. And Otto’s response was hardly stentorian.
From Merriam Webster:
No indication there of someone who is deliberately trying to stir up trouble.
Dictionaries are always rather behind the times. It might also be argued that they represent the views of their compilers (especially their original compiler, who may have lived in a different era, and is typically long dead) better than they represent popular usage. Language also changes, of course.
Thus, as much support might be found for the meaning of 1) someone who takes a contrary position, simply because it is contrary, or indeed of 2) someone who pretends to hold an opinion in order to make an argument more interesting.
Indeed, such support is found. You might wish to look up the Collins COBUILD English dictionary, which is based on a corpus of more than 200 million words of English of the 1990s, for example, which gives meaning 2) above.
As for ‘stentorian’, I think it captures the tone of Otto’s post nicely. Perhaps ‘dogmatic’ would have been more accurate. And more appropriate for a consideration of ‘devil’s advocate’, given its ecclesiastic connections.
If he is **obstructing ** your efforts he is an obstructionist. Perhaps he is sand-bagging you and your project.
He may be simply using an attention-getting device to grandstand. (Attention-geting device is a great one due to its hint of immaturity.)
He might be using a strawman to misdirect the effort. (Although strawmen have their uses in the thought process.) Perhaps he is simply being stubborn, stiff-necked or obdurate.
That’s still not what the OP was asking about. “Devils’ advocate” just doesn’t have the incendiary connotation that was described.
:dubious: I’m not at all convinced you know what “stentorian” means:
Since **Otto’s ** statement was neither unwarranted (he was correct in his objection) nor arrogant (note his use of “to me” in his second sentence) I think you are wrong on this one as well.
