Thought-Terminating Cliché

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9

by walterbell • 6 months ago

122 123 6 months ago

en.wikipedia.org

attila-lendvai2• 5 months ago

conspiracy theory, anyone? :)

dennis_jeeves2• 5 months ago

That's a good one.

mapontosevenths7• 5 months ago

Are you arguing that calling something a conspiracy theory is a thought terminating cliche?

I suppose it could be, but the lizard people tell me it's not.

FieIsay5• 5 months ago

I've been nebulously plagued by various such phrases and noticed them individually and sporadically; this article seems to have provided a basis for an over-arching concept which may help me to consolidate the way that I think about them, making it easier to recognise the underlying dynamic and corresponding fault in communication integrity, and thus navigate it coherently. I much appreciate this.

grimgrin2• 5 months ago

Sometimes I use them, because I simply want the person to shut the fuck up

The half time super bowl show is on, if you're really having a _problem_ with Bad Bunny, I agree to disagree ;) "shut the fuck up"

ithkuil3• 5 months ago

In this case the (communication) termination is working as intended

ecshafer• 5 months ago

A much more fun strategy is what I call "up the ante". Agree with them, but push the idea even further, throw some conspiracy theories in there.

Example:

A: I cant believe they have Bad Bunny doing the half time show!

B: Yeah its crazy... but you know how the lizard people are, they are just trying to distract us from the flat earth.

And keep upping it until they no longer agree.

some_random5• 5 months ago

Yeah they work great for terminating thoughts, that's the whole point.

shalmanese• 5 months ago

Eh, it is what it is.

buescher3• 5 months ago

because I simply want the person to shut the fuck up

Because you don't want to think about what they have to say, which is why you choose that approach to ending the conversation.

janoelze• 5 months ago

Don't overthink it.

ithkuil3• 5 months ago

Pointing out thought terminating cliches is a thought terminating cliche?

hackable_sand• 5 months ago

I don't get the joke ...

mapontosevenths7• 5 months ago

There are times in which the term "thought terminating cliche" itself can be the seen as the culprit.

To use an example from the article, if I were to say "Let people enjoy things", and you were to denounce that as a TTC without consideration of my true intent.

In that case you may inadvertently be the one that shuts down the debate prematurely, and I may have actually had a valid perspective.

dfxm12• 5 months ago

The onus is on you to convey your intent. If your response is merely a cliche, especially one understood to be a thought terminating cliche, treating it as such would be reasonable. If you feel your comment is misinterpreted, you always have the option to continue the discussion.

catapart4• 5 months ago

hard disagree. conversation is a multiple-person activity. the onus is on the participants to understand one another. it's never on one person or the other to make themselves understood. that framing comes from the useless rich people game called "debate" that pretends to be analogous to argument. it's only helpful in playing that game (and not even in real argument). conveyance and reception onus is irrelevant outside of that game, where the only onus is on participant comprehension.

gipp• 5 months ago

Something I've certainly witnessed on this site in particular more than once

behindsight• 5 months ago

On a similar vein is the "argument from fallacy" aka fallacist's fallacy. [1]

Essentially if you dismiss someone's argument as false just because it may have had a fallacy within it, that reasoning is itself a fallacy.

Some fallacy-seeking people ironically ignore this and just dismiss anything when they have the "gotcha, you made a fallacy therefore everything you said can be concluded as false" moment.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

mapontosevenths7• 5 months ago

You know, I hadn't even been aware that this was a term until now but I've certainly seen it in the wild many times! Thanks for sharing!

The idea that a single fallacy in a complex chain of reasoning renders the entire chain invalid just makes sense to programmers, who spend most of their time thinking in a step-wise and linear fashion where each output is the input to something else. This sort of "programmer style" thinking has crept into some surprising parts of society these days.

In real life, things are often more nuanced.

kgwxd2• 5 months ago

If someone invokes TTC against a TTC honestly, they're asking the speaker to think about what they just said. The opposite of a terminating thought. If that same person just wants someone to shut up, they'll say "shut up".

some_random5• 5 months ago

Part of the trouble is that some people using cliches are like the poster elsewhere in the thread talking about the super bowl, they're just trying to shut down the conversation and maybe bait a funny reaction.

xve• 5 months ago

Unfortunately, almost any phrase can become a thought terminating cliche, the phases in the Wikipedia page are just the easiest ones to spot. Counterintuitivly, I've heard people say things like "let's just think about this", "how about we take a step back", "let's pause and come back to this", etc. as a thought terminating cliches. This leads me to conclude there's something more going on here. On the surface these types of statements imply reflection, carefull consideration or a call for thoughtfulness but somehow the way they get used does the opposite. Maybe it's the tone, or maybe it's the intent of the speaker. Maybe it's when someone just wants to end the conversation they use whatever phrase is necessary to just end it, while preserving some degree of plausible deniability (not wanting to reveal that they simply want to end the conversation).

The opposite might be true as well, maybe the example you used can be a way to start a conversation and not end one.

hnthrow0287345• 5 months ago

They're really good to use if someone wants to debate you and you don't want to engage

Most people prefer to change their minds on their own terms and schedule. I'm also surprised there's not a 'most people..." thought-terminating cliche on this page

kylecazar2• 5 months ago

Yeah, the only time I'll whip out one of these is when I'm in a conversation that has no chance of going anywhere. Of course they should be avoided in actual good faith argument, but they're handy as a social tool when you need a mode of egress that's softer than the alternative.

Anyone who has old friends that became politically radical will know the dance.

AnimalMuppet3• 5 months ago

At least once, I have done the following: "Here's why I disagree with your position. [supply a concise statement]. I'm done with the conversation here, but I'll let you have the last word."

It conveys disagreement. It conveys that I'm out. But it's still respectful.

AndrewKemendo4• 5 months ago

Then why not directly say:

“well you and I disagree on this and so that it’s not worth engaging in further let’s switch to a new topic”

randusername2• 5 months ago

Agreed. Seems to have a negative connotation, but I think it can be a good thing to put up a barrier against thinking too deeply.

I find myself saying stupid things like "ain't that just the way" or "such is life in our times" around those in my life with an endless capacity for political outrage but limited capacity for political action.

It's like the magic "yes." when neither "yes and" nor "no" will do.

AndrewKemendo4• 5 months ago

a barrier against thinking too deeply

Can you explain what the risks of “thinking too deeply” are that a barrier to such is beneficial

kgwxd2• 5 months ago

I call it 'southern "wisdom"'

fancymcpoopoo• 5 months ago

Should the use of cliches be made a criminal offense?

mhb• 5 months ago

If you want the prisons to be full of American sports commentators.

guerrilla• 5 months ago

Sounds good.

hyperhello• 5 months ago

There oughta be a law!

verbify• 5 months ago

A stop sequence, but for humans.

carlosjobim• 5 months ago

The most important are those who live in our heads and can take over our souls:

"If only I was rich"

"If only I was born rich"

"If only I was better looking"

"If only I had the energy"

"If only I was smart"

"If only I had the time"

All of the above are usually excuses we make to not do the things we wish to.

It took me embarrassingly long in my youth to understand that when people said "I don't have time" or "I can't afford to", what they really meant was "I don't want to".

But when we're telling this to ourselves it is also lies almost 100% of the time.

Then it's better to either put those thoughts aside and start making things happen. Or admit to yourself when you don't want to.

ekjhgkejhgk3• 5 months ago

What youre describing is important enough that it surely also has a name, but its not what thought-terminating cliches are.

jonasdegendt• 5 months ago

Those fall into the category of defeatism, perhaps?

FieIsay5• 5 months ago

Describing these as 'excuses' seems to reduce a yet broader, overarching idea to its essential fault somewhat cleanly: looking at the listed cases in the article, they generally seem to be serving as excuses to others for not engaging by replacing a counter-argument with fundamental invalidation—an excuse to the standards of the self, and a corruption risk to the standards of the other. This mechanism seems a little like a run-time exception for responding to preserve internal coherence in response to an unmanaged (perception of) expectation. Ideally, an honest and coherent refusal of the engagement would be possible and provided—"Sorry, I don't have the capacity for this discussion right now"—but such circumstances often align with mental resources (and thus capacity to provide such 'cooperative refusals') being limited, and so the response may drop to a 'lower order', where the basis of the disagreement is invalidated (excused) instead. Then, there's the more negative case of low-effort rejection of engagements which don't seem worthwhile ("I've had this argument a hundred times, and it never goes anywhere"). Here, the general heuristic of 'effort optimisation' seems to lead to narrow-mindedness and (in turn or in parallel) dismissal of others' perspectives and the understanding of others in turn, such that they warrant neither coherent engagement nor coherent reason for refusal; thus, the basis of the discussion is again discarded, regardless of its general validity. In my experience, this can cause severe misunderstandings when the 'prejudice' underlying that dismissal isn't recognised; I've found it to 'mess me up' more than a few times with an over-literal reading.

phkahler2• 5 months ago

> It took me embarrassingly long in my youth to understand that when people said "I don't have time" or "I can't afford to", what they really meant was "I don't want to".

And "I don't want to" often means "I don't want to make the effort, but I would like the outcome if I did."

mapontosevenths7• 5 months ago

I think it really means "I would like to, but the cost is too high." IE - They like the idea of the reward, but the "expense" in terms of opportunity cost is too high.

They just don't think it through to the end when they say it. Or maybe they do, and this is just an easier way to say it?

philipallstar• 5 months ago

Well, I know that it sounds perfectly logical and unbiased, but "thought-terminating cliché" is actually a populist, right wing racist dogwhistle that demeans women and minorities.

AnimalMuppet3• 5 months ago

How so?

Tarq0n• 5 months ago

Parent is trying to sarcastically demonstrate thought termination by way of woke. As in, some accusations shut down conversations by way of being too much effort or requiring too much social capital to argue against.

stirfish• 5 months ago

Let's agree to disagree

amadeuspagel3• 5 months ago

Some such clichés are not inherently terminating, and only become so when used to intentionally dismiss, dissent, or justify fallacies.

How do you parse this sentence? Dismiss, dissent or justify fallacies? The fallacies are being dismissed, dissented (from?) or justified with a thought terminating cliché? So, the fallacy is the thought that's being terminated with the cliché?

The sentence would make grammatical sense if you remove the comma between dismiss and dissent, so that the thought terminating cliche dismisses dissent or justifies fallacies, but that only leads to more fundamental questions: Why do intentions matter? How could a cliche not be inherently thought-terminating? Are there different kinds of clichés, some thought-terminating, others thought-inspiring, or does the intention make the same cliché thought-terminating or thought-inspiring?

layer82• 5 months ago

The sentence is meant like this:

Some such clichés are not inherently terminating, and only become so when intentionally used to dismiss something, to dissent, or to justify fallacies.

The fact that “dissent” is an intransitive verb is an important clue. You can’t dissent fallacies. You can only dissent from something.

amadeuspagel3• 5 months ago

So a cliché is thought-terminating when it is intentionally used to dissent?

quectophoton• 5 months ago

I'll add one that's very common in HN: "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good."

Instantly closes the door to any thoughtful discussion.

y-curious• 5 months ago

Everything will be ok, man. Everything happens for a reason. Don’t worry.

eterm• 5 months ago

I use that a lot, but I find it is useful to avoid purity spirals. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral )

I didn't see it as closing down discussion, so I'll be mindful of that in future.

There is a real danger when presented with a problem to discard a partial solution because it fails to tackle a much larger problem.

It's a call for pragmatism over idealism.

pixl973• 5 months ago

I'm mixed on this one. Perfect us generally very expensive or doesn't actually exist. Quite often I'll use this in the place of "shit or get off the pot" as the search of Perfect will delay getting anything done.

cosmic_cheese• 5 months ago

Yeah this is generally how I use it, too. I don’t think of it as thought-terminating in those cases… if anything, it’s the opposite. Dismissal in pursuit of perfection feels more thought-terminating to me, because it shuts down discussion of what can be done now, how to mitigate downside, and gradually work towards an ideal instead favoring doing nothing and waiting for some highly improbable ready-made ideal solution to present itself at some indeterminate point in the future.

Ma8ee• 5 months ago

I think that certainly can provide a valid point in a discussion, without being any attempt to shut it down.

And for some of us, with some specific personality traits, using it as a mantra is how we get anything at all done some days.

buescher3• 5 months ago

That’s another one that’s true but particularly irritating when used as a cheap shot. I have responses for that like “Is it good when it breaks? Who owns it when it does?” Sort of like “are you fast if you don’t finish? Are you finished if you have to do things over?”

palmotea3• 5 months ago

I'll add one that's very common in HN: "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good."
Instantly closes the door to any thoughtful discussion.

No, because it's very common here for people use lack of perfection as an excuse for inaction, specifically to shut down thoughtful discussion of a problem or solutions to it

mrguyorama• 5 months ago

I disagree. It seems there is nothing HN likes more than claiming a single tiny mistake, or difference of preference, or possible hang up that will certainly come out in the wash are all valid reasons to reject anything and everything.

Programmers especially need to be constantly reminded that perfect is the enemy of the good, as do people trying to run successful businesses.

skrebbel2• 5 months ago

As a terrible ponderer, I depend heavily on about half the examples listed in this article to stop worrying about anything and everything. I don't think they're as obviously bad as their context in this article suggests.

spking• 5 months ago

I agree, many of these clichés are just verbal shortcuts to a pretty useful filter:

"This is not important for me to think about or discuss right now."

FieIsay5• 5 months ago

I think there's quite a meaningful difference between the suggested phrasing (which is quite honest and open, and I think should be generally acceptable) and the general character of the listed instances which serve to exemplify the concept, which dismiss the general (rather than contextual or personal, immediate) importance of the subject (e.g. "it's not that deep" rather than "I don't find it that deep" or "it's not particularly relevant right now"). I see it as a kind of refusal to take responsibility for refusal of engagement: external deflection of unimportance, rather than acceptance of non-engagement/disregard of (externally recognised) importance. I'd rather welcome people speaking as you exemplified: it's an explicit 'self-veto' from the relevance of the situation (and thus basis of involvement), rather than a dismissal of others' engagement (which ideally needn't involve the one who doesn't wish to be involved, of course).

FieIsay5• 5 months ago

It sounds like this kind of 'low-order dismissal' serves you as a kind of coping mechanism for anxiety. With respect, I suggest that, while it might be the best way of dealing with it that you currently have, there may be ways of addressing the deeper reasons that you need to stop yourself from worrying so often, else perhaps better ways of managing that worry: dismissal doesn't make a problem solved, it only mutes the warning signal—and we should ideally be able to trust (and bear) our warning signals. It thus seems fair to speak of the negative effects of such a fault of reasoning, whether it's a coping mechanism or not. To be clear, I appreciate your 'use case', and would agree that this kind of response is thus not an absolute negative; a more nuanced view might also spare people like you from (ironic) unfair dismissal or disapproval for depending on this kind of attention management strategy: the world is messy and optimisation is context-dependent, and almost all situations almost necessarily must involve some (or even all) 'non-ideal' methods.

Is there a particular part of the article that notably reads to you as unhelpfully negative or overgeneralising? I'd like to see what you're seeing here for how it might improve the article.

skrebbel2• 5 months ago

Come on, eg "it is what it is" is basically stoic philosophy in a nutshell. That's not a cope, it's a useful way of separating what you can control from what you can't. If the still-closeted overthinkers in this thread want to call that a "Thought-Terminating Cliché" then fine by me but to suggest that none of these can be useful tools is ridiculous.

The article suggests that "further discussion" is always good and my argument is that, well actually, no it isn't. Not always. And especially not when the entire discussion takes place inside of one person's brain.

bmacho• 5 months ago

I'm so enamored with similar concepts, I like to think about them as tools that I might reach out to, and they help me in achieve whatever, say thinking clearly and correctly.

Iirc when I've first seen someone linking this wiki article on HN I got so angry at it (both the person and the wiki article) that I wrote a ~15-sentence rant how stupid I found it.

This is definitely a tool that I would never use and only get angry when I see it. IMO it's no good.

ekjhgkejhgk3• 5 months ago

Mother of all thought-terminating cliches: a lot of people agree/say it/do it.

EDIT oh there you go, most people https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46944903

sarreph• 5 months ago

We are slowly (re-)discovering the various bits and pieces that make up our system prompt.

catapart4• 5 months ago

I love thought terminating cliches. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by...

Poor, and nonsensical paraphrasing aside, I really do enjoy them because challenging them is amusing in a laconic, snippy kind of way.

"It's not that deep.": "Oh good, I won't have to keep going much longer".

"Lies of the Devil.": "Yeah, but you never want to talk about the lies of god, so here we are."

"Stop thinking too much.": "Don't give me orders, you fucking cop."

"You clearly care way too much about this topic.": "Oh dang! My bad. How much caring is just right?"

"There are worse things in life to worry about.": "Oh yeah? More relevant to what we're talking about? What? Sounds like something else I'd like to discuss!"

"Here we go again.": "Rain falls. Fire burns. When the fuel is spent, the discussion will be over, and not until then."

"So what? What effect does my action have?": [contextual; but something along the lines of "the effect that I'm describing to you", or "it depends on your actions? The question is what effect do you want to have, and then we can work backwards to your actions".]

"Let people enjoy things.": "Sorry, which part of my concern makes it impossible to enjoy things?"

I could go on. I did leave out "It's all good.", though. I don't think I've ever had someone try to use that on me as a way to stop me from arguing. Mostly to stop me from trying to do something for them. "Let me get you a pillow!", "Oh, no, it's all good." That doesn't really seem like what we're talking about here. And I left out "Let's agree to disagree.", because it's too direct for me to consider it here? Like...it's not an evasion of an argument to say "I don't want to have an argument". That's just, straight up, holding a firm position. We don't have to agree to disagree, we can just disagree. But, either way, what you're trying to say is "I'm not going to discuss this with you", not "I don't think you should think about this." It's a different thing.

What I'm really getting at, though, is that none of these are particularly thought-terminating. Even though I agree they are annoying for people to try to deflect with, that's really my issue with all deflection. Doesn't really hinge on their poor use of rhetorical device. Almost every use of rhetoric is flawed in some way. The best way I've found to avoid these frustrations and those with other deflections, is to just run them down to their natural conclusion, maintaining the "north star" that we're both earnestly trying to reach a settled position on this discussion/argument. The second that stops seeming to be the case, things are better left unresolved and we SHOULD terminate the discussion. But as long as we can all be cowed back into the goal of mutual satisfaction, there's no reason to let irritating phraseology rattle you.

pixl973• 5 months ago

The second that stops seeming to be the case, things are better left unresolved and we SHOULD terminate the discussion

Well sometimes agreeing on that is the hard part.

catapart4• 5 months ago

Ah! That's interesting! I've never actually had that be difficult at all. Every time I ask "I'm just trying to get X. Is that something you can speak to?", I get a pretty concise answer, even if the response itself is meandering and non-committal (that's a "no", if you're unclear).

Would you have an example of a discussion where you weren't able to determine if both people were working towards the same goal?

amiga386• 5 months ago

"You clearly care way too much about this topic.": "Oh dang! My bad. How much caring is just right?"

An amount equal to the interlocutor's.

PessimalDecimal• 5 months ago

I'd put "the exception that proves the rule" on the list too. It's a brilliant piece of rhetorical jiu jitsu though, somehow turning disproof of a 'rule' into confirmation. And it definitely is thought-terminating.

jlongr• 5 months ago

It is what it is.

jatora• 5 months ago

Agree to disagree

jammaloo• 5 months ago

That's an interesting one, because it's misused more often than not, to mean what you are suggesting.

It's actually meant to say if someone provides an exception, e.g. "No parking on Wednesdays", then that proves the existence of another rule, e.g. "Parking is allowed". Since an exception, without a rule, makes no sense.

But, in my experience, people do use it to mean "Oh, this one thing is wrong, but that proves everything else is right", which does not track.

BoppreH2• 5 months ago

I think it's also appropriate to use it when the rule is so strong that exceptions are famous because they are exceptions. "Birds are capable of flight" is strong enough that penguins and ostriches are famous for being counterexamples.

FearNotDaniel• 5 months ago

No it's not. It's because the meaning of the English word "prove" has changed. It used to mean "test", which could of course have a positive or negative outcome. The modern sense of "successfully demonstrating truth" has caused this phrase to have the opposite of its original meaning.

[0] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/prove_v?tl=true

fluoridation• 5 months ago

I hated that I heard that phrase for the time as a small child and instantly realized it made no sense. "What do you mean pointing out a counterexample demonstrates the truth of a statement??" It amazes me that adults say it uncritically.

attila-lendvai2• 5 months ago

in hungarian it's ~"the exception strengthens the rule", which is equally misunderstood/misused by most people.

roomey• 5 months ago

Ah sure, lookit

thinkingemote2• 5 months ago

Robert Jay Lifton coined the term in his book which was about brainwashing and totalist societies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychol...

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis"

Examples of such phrases might be encountered in political protests by activists. The phrases can be mainly for the members of the group particularly the call and response type.

Lifton's book explains some other factors of such societies which I think can help identify whether a group is more like a cult: Leaders control information, hidden knowledge, demand for purity, confession of "sin", truth deciders, language control, doctrine > persons, only the in group are awakened.

jrjeksjd8d2• 5 months ago

Examples of such phrases might be encountered in political protests by activists. The phrases can be mainly for the members of the group particularly the call and response type.

This feels like it's aimed at leftist activism, but the American right has plenty of thought-terminating dogmas: the unitary executive, backing the police and military unequivocally, "if you don't like it here you can leave", the "original intent" of the founders. "Patriotism", the Constitution, and the American conception of Protestant Christianity are cudgels to be employed against wrong-think.

some_random5• 5 months ago

I think you're confusing thought terminating cliches with foundational beliefs, legal arguments, religion, and uhhh, the founding document of the country?

elxr• 5 months ago

That's a beautifully written quote, and describes to a T the number one issue plaguing mainstream online discourse today.

It's extremely prevalent on Reddit and similar social media sites (even here, although to a much smaller extent). I have no idea why so many people seem to enjoy this style of speaking, and to be surrounded by others doing the same. Isn't being proven wrong or learning something completely unexpected the best part of the internet?

thinkingemote2• 5 months ago

People like to be surrounded by people like themselves, so there's a group mentality thing going on. A group seeks to maintain itself. Encountering yourself in the other is hard to do online. And on this subject of polarity it's always the other side that is wrong and needs to change! :-)

Being proven wrong and learning something actually hurts. It doesn't harm me when I learn that I'm wrong (just the opposite, it helps me grow) but it very much does hurt! So it makes sense that I tend to avoid things that will hurt me. For some even thinking that they could change and learn leads them to worry and avoidance.

Putting the two together if an individual changes then it weakens their group identity. So a person wants to stay in the group and be safe and not be hurt and the group wants the person to not weaken their membership.

In international peace negotiations a good neutral negotiator seeks to build a common ground between the sides - to show that their groups hold things in common, that change is possible.

On that topic: "No pain no gain." Its a cliche but I dont think thats terminating? "you're not the same person you were five years ago", "change happens", "You don’t have to have it all figured out"

Maybe terminating ones would be "if you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen", "curiosity killed the cat", "Why overthink it?", "That’s above my pay grade", "You can’t teach an old dog new tricks", "leopards cant change their spots"

phkahler2• 5 months ago

A rising tide lifts all boats - a phrase used by economists to justify exporting all US production capability to China to help them industrialize. Of course there was no economic model to back it up, and now some of them are questioning if that was actually a good idea.

DonHopkins2• 5 months ago

Now used to justify Trump's withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Paris Agreement.

haritha-j• 5 months ago

And probably used even more to justify 'capitalism at all costs'

AlexandrB• 5 months ago

Using "capitalism" as a pejorative is itself a thought-terminating cliche. Left unsaid is the proposed alternative which, given the historical record, is probably worse.

some_random5• 5 months ago

In my opinion, thought terminating concepts (or whatever you want to call them) are the single biggest danger to critical thinking there is. Which is of course why they're utterly ubiquitous in politics.

Edit: Let me elaborate a little, the cliches supplied are one thing but in politics especially there exists particularly potent thought stopping phrases that instantly inhibit one's ability to think. Present in literally every political niche I've seen is "my opponents are <xyz bad thing>", which can be used to dismiss any opposing claim or criticism by "revealing" their "true intentions".

portly• 5 months ago

In Dutch we call this a "dooddoener", a "death-do'er". Quite a good word.

buescher3• 5 months ago

“All models are wrong, some are useful” is frequently misused or misunderstood this way.

anal_reactor• 5 months ago

I instantly terminate friendships where such phrases appear.

AndrewKemendo4• 5 months ago

I’ve yet to meet anyone that had anything worth talking about that has invoked one of these

akabalanza• 5 months ago

A thesaurus for gaslighting

palmotea3• 5 months ago

The examples in the article are pretty poor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...

Most of them are like "So what? What effect does my action have?" and "It is what it is" which may be "thought-terminating" but seem to be able to serve a positive function of directing attention towards more productive avenues. Similarly, "let's agree to disagree" is a arguably a recognition that thought has already stopped (heels have been dug in) and it's better to move on.

It's not reasonable to expect someone to always engage fully with every topic every time. It's socially necessary to be able to terminate such interactions when one party doesn't want to continue.

There are better examples in this thread like "a rising tide lifts all boats" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945482), which are specific slogans designed to terminate specific thoughts (i.e. critique of specific ideologies).

Edit: Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative is probably an prime example of a thought-terminating cliche, and a pretty potent one at that. It's explicitly meant to naturalize specific neo-liberal policy choices (by naturalize I mean make like natural law, make it a non-debatable fact), eliminating any opportunity to crique or debate them.

euroderf• 5 months ago

Or "you can't cross a canyon in two jumps", which was used to justify fast, radical economic change in the post-revolutionary USSR.

Thought-Terminating Cliché

Related Stories