[HN Gopher] Thought-Terminating Cliche
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Thought-Terminating Cliche
Author : Tomte
Score : 32 points
Date : 2023-07-08 19:56 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| beaned wrote:
| Some of these just seem like things people say when they don't
| want to dig in to a conversation for convenience, or don't have
| an interesting reply. The article sort of lays them out as having
| a type of sideways intention, but often these ones are more
| benign. I think there are probably better examples.
| wayeq wrote:
| "Well, I don't know about all that."
| jawns wrote:
| > An example of the cliche in use provided by Chaz Bufe is "the
| admonition given to Catholic schoolchildren to recite the Hail
| Mary or rosary to ward off 'impure thoughts'. The use of
| repetitive chanting by the Hare Krishnas serves the same thought-
| stopping purpose."
|
| Neither of these examples have much relevance to thought-
| terminating cliches, whose purpose is to "stop an argument from
| proceeding further," because neither of these examples involves
| an argument.
|
| Rather, they both have a meditative purpose, intended not to end
| thought but to focus it on something. In the case of Catholics
| reciting the rosary, the intention is to focus their thoughts on
| the mysteries of their faith. In the case of Hare Krishnas
| chanting the maha-mantra, it is intended to achieve self-
| realization by connecting with Krishna.
|
| But whatever. I'm entitled to my opinion, so let's just agree to
| disagree.
| _Microft wrote:
| > let's just agree to disagree
|
| That's one, I'd say.
| vacuity wrote:
| In this case, parent laid out their thoughts already and
| didn't make it a "I'm going to pit my value/belief against
| yours and not bother to elaborate because I'm right"
| situation, which is where I find something like "let's agree
| to disagree" banal. I think it can make sense if one expounds
| on one's value and leaves off with that phrase because
| there's a legitimate impasse (which may entail more
| discussion to discover). Parent was more making an
| observation of the examples not fitting the definition, so
| there's not really a value judgement.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That's interesting. "Agree to disagree" means "you aren't
| going to persuade me, I'm not going to persuade you,
| conversation over." That's one kind of debate-ending cliche.
|
| There are others that are "you're wrong, conversation over".
| Calling someone or something "X-ist" is often that.
|
| I guess both of those can serve as thought-ending cliches,
| because now I don't have to think any further about what you
| say. But in terms of what they do to the _conversation_ ,
| they are not equivalent.
| carrozo wrote:
| At the end of the day, it is what it is, and it ain't what it
| ain't.
| mandmandam wrote:
| It is what it is.
|
| That's life.
|
| Don't overthink it.
|
| ... Seems to me that these cliches grew rapidly in the last
| couple decades.
|
| The fact that people just accept without challenge that Threads
| will de-platform anything "political" [0] is an outcome of this
| kind of thinking, imo. People would have been a lot more cynical
| about such a move ( _from Mark "they trust me - dumb fucks"
| Zuckerberg_) fifteen years ago.
|
| 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36636486
| pphysch wrote:
| More examples: "whataboutism", "you sound like <bad guy>",
| "this is <bad thing> propaganda"
|
| It's definitely gotten worse in recent decades. Oratory and
| intellectual debate are increasingly rare in our society since
| the Cold War. Political bipolarity eviscerated the
| American/Western intellect.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Indeed - there seems to be a concerted attack on nuance, and
| even thinking.
|
| Great people like Stallman, Tesla, Feynman, Chomsky, Assange
| and Snowden, etc, are smeared and dismissed due to unrelated,
| out of context, twisted, false selections of views.
|
| Tribalism is fed and magnified, saying the 'wrong' (no matter
| if true) thing gets you dismissed as a conspiracy theorist /
| tankie / Trumpist / how many other "thought-ending insults".
| No questions, no time for looking at evidence, just thrown in
| the 'other' bucket.
|
| Biden asked Twitter to censor true information that went
| against the preferred narrative, and the so-called left wing
| collectively decided "there's no there there", it's a
| "nothing-burger". More cliches. And the 'other' sides
| thought-ending cliches are so barmy that it's impolite to
| even describe them accurately; and it physically hurts to
| even try.
|
| And it does go back to that "bipolarity", which acts very
| like a monopole on certain big issues like oil, war,
| equality, censorship, and people not in the tribe.
|
| I don't think we can blame it all on social media or human
| nature either. In too many cases, you can point to someone
| shadowy putting their finger on the levers of power. Murdoch,
| Turner, Zuck, etc; they all have a lot more in common with
| each other than with us.
| robocat wrote:
| > And it does go back to that "bipolarity"
|
| It happens in New Zealand too, and we don't have bipartisan
| politics
| Given_47 wrote:
| Interesting. So I'd imagine it's less predetermined but
| people still end up taking a certain side and from there
| all the same toxicity appears
| mandmandam wrote:
| That is a very fair point - this is quite possibly an
| issue right across "the West" (which can include NZ in
| this case). I've noticed it in Ireland, in France, in
| Germany. Even the Scandos seem not to be immune.
|
| I'll have to think about it some more. I will say this
| though - America is at the vanguard of anti-
| intellectualism, and has been for quite some time. Mark
| Twain commented on it _frequently_ , for example.
|
| And even so, the last couple decades have seen the
| dismissal of deep / nuanced thinking grow far worse, even
| as "bipartisanship" also rapidly got bad enough to bring
| us a lot closer to civil war than I expected in the 90s.
|
| One last point - it's _weird_ that this would happen even
| as everyone gets _nerdier_. People all use computers,
| watch LOTR and Harry Potter, cosplaying and conventions
| are all normalized... It 's not what I'd have expected.
| pphysch wrote:
| Polarization is everywhere (in AUS/NZ mainly due to being
| part of Anglosphere yet proximal to China), but in
| America it is on a totally different level than NZ.
|
| I occasionally will see nuanced, heterodox comments from
| AUS/NZ politicians that would not be tolerated in
| Washington.
| Given_47 wrote:
| Good points I actively avoid allergies nearly all political
| discourse (especially online) for the reasons u stated.
| Unless ur also masochistic, any normal person would be
| driven insane at the sheer absurdity of it all ("normal"
| being us abnormal people that find nuanced and good faith
| discussions constructive lol)
| renewiltord wrote:
| I think on HN that would be "this is not Reddit" or like any
| other forum "correlation isn't causation".
| robocat wrote:
| That is selection bias.
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