Advocacy Stephen Dunn Always a little more fun on the Devil's side. I've been his advocate, have opposed what I most believed, testing if what I believed was true. It sometimes almost was; that's the best I can say. But you can bedevil yourself if you keep playing that game. You don't want to stand in a torturer's shoes for long. Still, when it comes to seeking a truth, a certain cruelty can go a long way- right through the heart of a thing to some other side. Doesn't every far-reaching truth cause a lesser truth to die? Most of us are content to stop at the heart. When I've been good's advocate, playing the less clever role, I've gone as far as good can go. Maybe some orthodoxy or some abomination lost ground for a while. Maybe not. The one time I had the Devil down, thinking he'd give, he whispered, "Remember, the punishment for being good is a life of goodness." I laughed, and he was gone.