I have found that I can find fairly good reasons for just about anything. I think of lawyers hired to defend a hopelessly guilty client.
Can a lawyer defend a client?
Defense lawyers are ethically bound to zealously represent all clients, including those they believe will justly be found guilty, as well as those they believe are factually innocent. ... Truthfully, a defense lawyer almost never really knows whether the defendant is guilty or not of the charged crime.
Can a Lawyer Defend Someone They Know is Guilty?
I have had experience with the sort of exercise described in "Fighting for Life" by Walter Ong. Ong says that prior to the introduction of women students in early American universities, a common educational procedure was for the professor to write a proposition on the board and set half of the class to thinking, speaking and writing in support of the idea and half against it.
There have been many articles written about polarization in the US. For instance:
I live in Wisconsin, a state that has a well-known professional football team. Men have devoted much of their lives and bodies to opposition to similar teams from other locations. What explains this long-lasting opposition? To paraphrase Rodney King (look him up), why can't they just get along?
In some cases, they can. Professional players for team A can move to team B, a longtime opponent, and play for B from now on.
When Uncle Harry is strongly in favor of the Purple party while Uncle Jim is just as strongly in favor of the Maroon party, they may be in the habit of opposing each other. That habit may well have started years ago, when Harry and Jim each wanted to use the little green shovel in the sand box.
Parents and teachers like to think that they can explain whether an idea is true and well-supported by evidence. Yet, they find that over time, the durned kids develop the "wrong" ideas! Whether it is divorce or vaccination or political affiliation or religion, there are many areas where what is good evidence is debated. There are many issues which aren't persuasive to those others who just don't get it.
