• Hegar
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    1 month ago

    This term seems like just an insult wearing academic robes. And a tautology. All cliches over simplify the world, side-stepping complex analysis.

    There’s nothing “thought terminating” about acknowledging that a problem is beyond your scope - which is what the first two mean. I’ve only heard YOLO used to encourage risk-taking, which is completely different.

    Realistically, these are often just social cues that you’re bored with the conversation.

    Obviously whether you use a cliche to avoid thinking deeper on a topic or for some other reason changes with each use. It’s not inherent to the phrase.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        Ending an argument often involves dismissing dissent. The end of an argument is also the end of thought on that argument. You’re just rewording the original term, that you’re arguing against.

      • Hegar
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        1 month ago

        The Wikipedia article has multiple conflicting definitions, including:

        "any use of the language, especially repeated phrases, to ward off forbidden thoughts”
        “Claim Y sounds catchy. Therefore, claim Y is true.”
        “the start and finish of any ideological analysis”

        The problem is that the term is just BS, in part because the idea it was made to support is complete BS.

        Defining ‘Totalitarianism’ was a cold war project of western academia, trying to come up with a way to say that the nazis and soviets were the same. They weren’t though. Only far right US Nationalists still claim this. The term has very low analytical use, so once the pressure to create this propaganda evaporated with the end of the USSR the term quickly became defunct.

        Thought terminating cliches was coined by a psychologist in ’61 trying to claim that ‘totalist thought is characterized by thought terminating cliches.’ To translate: the west has reasoned ideology, everyone else just spouts cliches.

    • @[email protected]
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      71 month ago

      If only there was a way to describe using a saying to abruptly conclude a conversation that you’re bored with so that you no longer are expected to apply any more mental energy on the topic, using an established terse phrase.

      Like, maybe “consideration ending saying”

      • @[email protected]
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        51 month ago

        Just walking away from someone who you’re talking to is generally seen as very rude, hence us developing social cues to demonstrate that you’re done with the topic/conversation.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 month ago

      Well, if you recognize that a situation is beyond your scope you might use such a phrase to suggest moving on from further discussion either internally or in conversation with others. It might be less a magic phrase that stops thoughts and more a request to move on; a “conversation terminating” phrase.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate
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      21 month ago

      Thank you! I felt the same way.

      I find myself saying or thinking “it is what it is” pretty often, but not to terminate thought/conversation. If something bad happens and I can’t do anything about it except deal with it, that’s just the way it is. I see people complaining about those situations, and I feel like it’s just wasted energy; we should save that energy for the things we have some amount of control over.