Talk:Thought-terminating cliché/Archive 1

Archive 1

Definition in Intro

Cut from intro:

A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance, especially in cases where the person experiencing the cognitive dissonance might resolve it by reaching a thought-provoking epiphany.

This sounds like an argument for the theory of mind control, with an unfulfilled promise of some examples of thought-stopping, a technique "cult"s supposedly taught to recruits to prevent them from questioning dogma.

Is there any way to salvage the reference to cognitive dissonance or to explain the connection to Robert Lifton? --Uncle Ed 16:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It's nothing so dramatic, people are just lazy. That's why parents give them the most. They don't have the energy to bother to answer kids' questions, and eventually the kids learn to stop asking them of people who probably don't know, and figure it out for themselves.

Reversions

Anon reverted twice to 17 May 2006 version with these Edit Summaries:

1. ah, I see, wonderful point [1]
2. very good points, cults = good, liberals = trying to control your brain... i think i'll revert anyway [2]

Please explain the reason for your reversions. --Uncle Ed 15:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Liar paradox

Hi. The concept of a thought-terminating cliché is a thought-terminating cliché.--Loodog 16:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

It can be if used to dismiss an argument or idea solely on that basis. Deepstratagem 11:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone explain this?

"The thought-terminating cliché is related to the opaque pigeonhole, or closed category, which also does not permit analysis."

It sounds fascinating and might lead to discovering patterns congruent with TTCs, but someone please elaborate on it? What's an opaque pigeonhole (or closed category)? And what is the object in the sentence, "which also does not permit analysis"; "permit analysis" appears to be a transitive verb phrase, meaning we need an object! Thanks. Deepstratagem 11:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I took this off. Besides being uncited the wiki link to pigeonhole leads to a disamb page, none of which seemed to apply to this use of the word. Northwestgnome (talk) 16:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Proper Assessments

I'm not certain that "Do as I say, not as I do" is actually a "poisoning the well" case. Similarly, I think that "My body, my choice" may be a "bare assertion fallacy" and not an "ignoratio elenchi". Anyone? Sweetfreek (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree - the first example is not a case of poisoning the well, because it is not an active attempt to discredit an argument. However, I am having trouble with body/choice: I cannot recall a situation where that cliche was even remotely successful in suppressing a discussion. I would suggest removing it from the list entirely. Janeuner (talk) 04:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, too. Specifically, the "my body, my choice" cliche is not a logical fallacy; it's simply an extremely succinct way of saying that humans should hold the discretion to control their bodies. Usually, the phrase is given in response to an anti-abortion argument. Example: in response to A indicating that s/he believes abortion should be illegal, B argues that humans should have the legal right to control their bodies (my body, my choice). "Ignoratio elenchi" assumes an irrelevant argument. In that context, "my body, my choice" is very relevant, and, therefore not "ignoratio elenchi." (BTW, I'm not taking any stance politically on this issue; please don't bombard me with anti-abortion rhetoric.) 6uyFawkes (talk) 04:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.139.218 (talk)

Ok, I went to this talk page to see arguments with regard to the "my body, my choice" entry, and since everyone here seems to agree that it is misplaced, I'll follow the Be bold principle and make the change. --LodeRunner (talk) 18:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It's the context that sometimes makes these expressions thought-terminating cliches

Many of these expressions, in certain circumstances, are quite reasonable responses. For example, if you tell a man with an unrequited crush who refuses to give up hope that he can't always get what he wants, you're giving him a good piece of advice. On the other hand, if you told workers who are demanding a decent living wage that they can't always get what they want, you probably are resorting to a smug, thought-terminating cliche.99.234.101.193 (talk) 06:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

True. There are also times when a thought-terminating cliche is a good thing. For instance if I see someone at work doing something unsafe all I need to do is say, "safety first." Northwestgnome (talk) 16:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe there needs to be some talk of positive side of the thought ending cliche. For instance 'Lets agree to not agree' can be used to resolve conflicts, rather then actually stop thinking.82.169.240.67 (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It can be used to stop conflicts, but not actually resolve them. --LodeRunner (talk) 18:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Is the phrase "thought terminating cliché" itself a thought terminating cliché?

I was just wondering whether the phrase "thought terminating cliché" is itself a thought-terminating cliché? Just imagine, if you will, a wikipedia editor at a cocktail party terminating all further thought or discussion on a certain phrase by smugly announcing "that's just a thought terminating cliché!"...to rapturous applause by a crowd of paid admirers. Colin4C (talk) 21:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

i think probably the necessity of a sub-context in making your point is self-limiting. a "proper" example of a TTC should require only the most basic of historical events as context. wikipedia does not qualify, let alone one of its editors. while it's not clear what the "level zero" context would necessarily be, it is clear that there is some sort of hierarchical relationship between levels of obscurity. 128.128.98.46 (talk) 21:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

If calling something a TTC is used to dismiss it, then yes a TTC is an example of itself. Not sure if contemporary TTCs should be eliminated from the example list. The term "Support our Troops!" has been clearly used to discourage dissent regarding US occupation of Iraq, though when I ask myself "How should we support our troops?" I consider how to get them better equipment (i.e. armor, or better APCs than the hummer) or how to get them home, things that were definitely not on the agenda of the Bush administration, or those who allegedly wanted us to "support our troops."

A good article on contemporary campaigning devices used in the last election (and last three US presidential elections) can be found here, courtesy of Cracked magazine: http://www.cracked.com/article_16656_6-brainwashing-techniques-theyre-using-on-you-right-now.html

Uriel-238 (talk) 07:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Kōans

I wonder if a kōan is considered the opposite of a TTC? Viriditas (talk) 14:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy Theory?

Would anyone consider the mere mention of the words "conspiracy" or "conspiracy theory" a thought-terminating cliché? In my personal experience many people shut down all thought processes and consider further discussion on the topic meaningless if the words are uttered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.134.160.79 (talk) 05:37, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There needs to be some mention of this phenomena. Sweetfreek (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Would agree that "that's a conspiracy theory" (hence no further consideration necessary) is a killer-phrase. It works however both ways, since conspiracy theorists do use joker-arguments as well: "No evidence" = "the conspirators did let the evidence vanish / do everything in secret". --41.18.172.132 (talk) 12:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Context again

Context is extremely important. For example, in many contexts original research is praise. In Wikipedia discussion pages the cry OR is sometimes used legitimately but is very often used to silence others and stop perfectly relevant discussion. Norvo (talk) 16:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Other Orwell example

It seems to me that "four legs good two legs bad" and the way it is used in Animal Farm is particularly simple and understandable example from fiction. In comparison with the other fictional (though maybe this word is not well chosen) examples used this may be more obvious to the reader on an immediate level. I agree, of course, that the treatment of "newspeak" is much more in depth and illuminating, but perhaps the farm slogan is most accessible. Thehalfone (talk) 21:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Politically charged examples

Delete or change the political ones; they are biased. All except the first are phrase that left wing supporters attribute to right wing supporters. Futhermore, "Support are troops" doesn't fall under this topic whatsoever. 76.248.69.27 (talk) 22:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Responding to 76.248.69.27: Of course the individual statements are biased - by definition, they are examples of bias. Their usage here should not bias the reader; to the contrary, they highlight the presense of bias in other settings. To attribute these statements to a specific political group is irrelevant...they can and are used in all debates to suppress any point-of-view. Lastly, "Support the troops" is in fact an example of a thought-terminating cliche, because it can be used as a Red Herring which draws attention from whether or not military action is desirable. However, it would be appropriate to add statements recently used by left-wing personalities, as it would improve the quality of the article and reduce its divisiveness. Janeuner (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Since we are not going to eliminate politically charged examples, I added a few that are more common, and moved the God example, to non-political. I don't think God's plan is necessarily political. 96.231.80.3 (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The amount of effort that it takes to explain why these are "thought-terminating cliches" seems to undermine the definition of a cliche. "Support our troops" could be used as a thought-terminating cliche, just as "wash your hands" could be used as a political thought-terminating cliche, or "tie your shoes," or "look both ways." However, that they have to be explained in a very specific context and from a very specific political perspective suggests that they are not cliches at all. Better Dead than Red or ...At least Hitler built a highway, are actual cliches and have been used in this way. I'll give this some time for a counter-point before removing, but the "political TTC" subsection is needlessly politically biased, to the extent that it distorts the actual article.

Their usage here does bias the reader by taking phrases that may or may not have been used and then declaring that those are "thought-terminating" and that they are "cliches" which isn't necessarily true. "Support our troops" is a declarative statement and more often than not, is not used to "terminate thought," but rather -- generally -- to provoke thought. The looming fear that one political persuasion uses "support our troops" to quell discussions about the effectiveness or necessity of war is exagerated -- if anything this is a very contested point, probably biased, and in any event, not encyclopedic. The same can be said about "this is for security reasons" or "we can't talk about _this_ for security reasons." I mean, first, neither of those are cliches in any reasonable way, second, given context, those could be perfectly reasonable responses to something. If a child asks why he has to take off his shoes while going through an airport security terminal, respond with, "this is for security reasons," is not "thought-terminating," nor is it a cliche... it is a perfectly reasonable answer to something. "We can't talk about..." isn't remotely a cliche, I don't think I've ever heard anybody ever say that we can't talk about a specific topic for reasons of national security. Perhaps in a totalitarian despotism, but in all likelihood, the editor who added that did not have totalitarian despotisms in mind when adding it, and is likely not well enough informed to add it without citation anyway. 192.80.61.168 (talk) 18:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleaned up some old (>1 year) discussions from this subsection. Without addressing every detail of the argument from 192.80.61.168, I will say this: the English language allows for a given phrase to be used in a wide variety of ways. It is probable that all of the example TTCs can be used in situations where they would not meet the strict definition of a TTC. However, these are well recognized examples of how TTCs are used in political discourse. For this reason, I am restoring some of the political examples that were deleted on June 2. Janeuner (talk) 04:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"Anarchist organisations", isn't that an oxymoron? While this maybe is said sometimes to mock anarchists, I don't think it is common enough to raise to the level of a cliche. Northwestgnome (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In the edit namespace, the section begins, "Please do not add current examples without citing a reliable source." I don't understand. None of the existing examples are sourced. Troiscoins (talk) 06:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

True, but ideally there should be a reliable source discussing each slogan as an example of a thought-terminating cliché. The edit notice is to try to discourage the wave of people adding slogans from political parties they dislike while removing their own party's slogans. - 2/0 (cont.) 09:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

As a tautology

I added this section back in:

The statement "That is a thought-terminating cliché" can in and of itself function as a thought-terminating cliché. Once the stator has identified a first statement as a thought-terminating cliché, they may feel absolved of needing to determine whether that first statement is indeed a thought-terminating cliché or whether it has actual merit.

It was originally removed because it was unsourced. However, most of the article is unsourced, so I felt it could be restored and await (like the rest of the article) proper documentation.

You just can't do that.—αrgumziω^ϝ 16:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced examples

This article really needs references for the examples. Many of them could be said to be examples of 'thought-terminating clichés', but making a list without references seems like original research, if not outright WP:POV pushing. We should only include examples here that have been described by someone as a 'thought-terminating cliché', otherwise the list will grow indefinitely, and will just lead to people adding any political slogan they don't like (indeed, that's what's already happened). Robofish (talk) 12:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

I've never heard this phrase before, but looking through the google news archive and google books results for it, it seems like it's not in common use and most authors who use it explicitly attribute it to Lifton's book. Nothing in this article is cited or citable.Prezbo (talk) 07:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Bias Religious examples

All of the religious examples are Christian. Perhaps other relgions don't have though-terminating clichés? Otherwise some should be added.82.24.171.14 (talk) 07:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I also think that some of the phrases which here are judged to be thought-terminating cliches are actually very deep statements about the nature of the human condition or the nature of reality. I won't remove them, but i find placing "This too shall pass" or even "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away" in this category to be undermining the depth of these statements. Granted, I suppose sometimes these are used without thought, but they could, in proper contexts, be very deep ontological statements. Are they not equivalent to a Stoic perspective, which is intended to resolve a human to the transitory nature of things, and thus inform his reactions and his actions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.117.208.42 (talk) 04:43, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Bias?

Though I accept the possibility of a thought terminating cliche existing, and feeling there should be an article on it, this article is BLATANT propaganda, in that it consists almost entirely of an example which does not illustrate the subject matter properly and refers to off-topic items in a way intended to influence the reader. It has an obvious bias and does not address the issue from a neutral point of view.—Preceding undated comment added 06:53, 24 January 2005

Is this still valid nearly 5 years on? Should the POV template remain?--Farry (talk) 12:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing POV in this article. I am removing the template- if anyone objects, feel free to revert me and we can carry on the discussion here. Nutiketaiel (talk) 14:41, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to strike this back up. As a random reader, I'd like to say that I found this article reasonably biased. Especially the comments about political correctness. From a basic editing stand point, are this many examples even necessary? --71.217.100.70 (talk) 08:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The list of examples is most certainly original research unless citations can be provided for each of them. —siroχo 23:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Bring back the examples

I think that eliminating the page with the examples this was pretty a bad idea: it is very difficult to get what a thought-terminating cliches is without a decent number of examples. In addition, the examples are of interest themselves, since it is interesting to recognize their common use in everyday life. In addition, the concept has its autonomy although it was popularized by a specific book. AMenteLibera (talk) 09:15, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Agree. I've never heard of the book, yet I've encountered the examples in many a discourse. Without the examples, I find the article far less useful to the average user, who in all likelihood, hasn't heard of the book either, but has heard at least a few of the examples. -- Dandv 05:39, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Redirect

I restored the redirect to the Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism#Thought-terminating cliché. The target article already has all the info this page has, minus the 2.5 million examples. But this stand-alone article is just example bait; all the examples encourage others to add just one more. They're all OR, they're all unnecessary. And what your left with is a couple of short paragraphs that fit comfortably in the target article. If that section of the target article ever gets unwieldy, the article can be calved off, but after many years in this condition, I don't think that's likely. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that was an unfortunate decision, because the concept has gained a life of its own, way beyond the book. Let alone that the concept predated the book to begin with. I agree that the examples might have been excessive, but then let's apply the appropriate measure and trim the examples, not kill the entire article.-- Dandv 05:39, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Also, the talk page has been a redirect for a while! --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:07, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Old Version of the article which was censored

The old version of the article, which was deleted and censored, can be found here

http://jorgenmodin.net/index_html/wikpedias-now-deleted-page-on-thought-terminating-cliche

The examples should be returned to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.22.50.246 (talk) 13:46, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I've restore the page, but trimmed the examples, and agree with the previous users who mentioned that we shouldn't let the article become an example farm. To that end, I've added warning comments at the beginning of each section, advising to only add examples with citations from reliable sources. -- Dandv 05:49, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Redirect

So this should probably be a soft redirect to Talk:Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:07, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Why? -- Dandv 05:39, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I liked the old article. I linked to it all the time whenI pointed out to people they were using thought terminating cliches. Now, that link takes them to a larger article of which the have to sift through lines and lines to get to the point I was attempting to make. - Mark Stuber

Agree. I came back to the article after a few years, and the first few paragraphs were a mouthful trying to explain what the examples were conveying much more directly and succinctly. -- Dandv 05:39, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I undeleted the redirect and restored the talk page. If anyone redirects a discussion then they should move the discussion. If anyone wants deletion then go to AfD. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:27, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Poor Grammar/Writing

The punctuation, grammar, and word use in this article are frankly atrocious. Invalid use of semicolons, independent clauses strung together with commas, words simply used incorrectly... This reads like someone is trying to "sound smart" and/or is not a native speaker.

24.6.3.148 (talk) 00:12, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Social Politics

It seems that all the examples in this section are themselves examples of Thought-Terminating Cliches, i.e. the assertion that replying to opponents of same-sex marriage with accusations of homophobia is 'totalitarian' (a word which can only be used to describe the nature of a state); a similar problem with the idea of 'free speech' being used to silence discussions (as free speech also applies solely to a state's restriction of speech. If one individual or non-state group criticises another, even falsely, it is still simply them exercising their own free speech); the assertion that the term 'Islamophobia' is used in the same way as the term 'homophobia' is also an example, as it does not provide an argument as to why that usage is erroneous; the part about toxic masculinity is based entirely on a common misunderstanding of the concept (i.e. that it is a way to criticise men or that masculinity is never desirable. In fact the term specifically refers to ways in which current conceptions of masculinity are harmful *to men specifically*).

This last point especially, but to an extent the others as well, also raise the question of the validity of the sources. The entire section is sourced from op-ed pieces, whilst other sections (generally) seem to have much more rigorous sources, due in part to their restriction to purely factual claims, rather than the subjective claims in this section.

There is also the issue of the title of the section. How is 'social politics' defined as distinct from 'politics'. Politics is by its very nature 'social', as it deals with societies. There is a WP article called Social Politics, but it is the name of a gender studies journal and thus there is no precedent for its employment as a term on WP and it is defined nowhere.

I propose that the whole 'Social Politics' section be removed, or at the very least given a major overhaul to make it clear what the title means, and to ensure it only contains neutral, factual information relating to the title of the article as a whole. I've tried to do the former, but it got reverted, so I'm raising the issue here. Devgirl (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Although I can see where it is you are coming from, in fact, there did once exist a section explaining this very issue that mere declarations of a cliche itself constituted as such; the purpose of this section is to highlight where the use of such fallacious logic has been implemented before. If you look at the sources where these examples have been sourced from, they go into more detail on the issues they are referencing and why their logic is flawed, perhaps even dangerous.
What may be a better solution is that rather than removing this information is to re-write this section appropriately, and as you suggest to integrate it into different sections on the page, the main distinction to me between politics and social politics is that politics referred to the criticism towards government's, whereas social politics did not but. Maybe a better title for this section then would be "Social movements" or something along those lines.
In any case, I disagree with the simple deletion of this section. Revising the section I believe would be a better solution. UnniKnox (talk) 12:43, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Incorporating the section into other parts of the article wouldn't change the fact that the only 'evidence' for its claims are op-eds. Unless valid sources can be found that indicate not just that these things are happening, but that they are TTCs, they're simply misleading, and the article as a whole suffers for it. Devgirl (talk) 21:40, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

The intention of this section (Criticism of use) is to showcase critiques from valid sources, in regards to the sub-section that is currently from the likes of The Independent and from notable writers such as Breda O'Brien. The point of this section is to highlight historical and, when possible, current examples of where TTC's are applied and what their potential resulted effects are. With your suggestion, shouldn't this entire section therefore be removed, rather than just this sub-section since it is all of a similar format? Perhaps I'm still having trouble interpreting what it is you are criticising, the fact that the sentences within this prose are possible TTC's themselves doesn't strike me as an issue since it is essentially a list of topical examples, not a debate in of itself like the reference material they are sourced from. Please correct me if this is a misinterpretation. UnniKnox 23:57, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

As I have explained, though the citations are from generally accepted sources, the individual articles are not acceptable sources, as they are all op-eds (opinion editorials), rather than news reports. To use an exaggerated example, it would be like citing a cartoon as 'evidence' of a controversial factual claim simply because said cartoon is syndicated in the Washington Post. I will remove the section for now, but feel free to find factual sources. Devgirl (talk) 19:50, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Echoing Devgirl, these appear to be trivial mentions of the phrase TTC mid-way through an op-ed, not actual critiques of the concept. Axem Titanium (talk) 06:35, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Inappropriate Example

The following example was given in the Thought-terminating cliché article:

• "It's not a religion; it is a relationship." - Intends to divert criticism, and is considered to be an assertion absent of any evidence or reasons that rely on one's confusion. "Tell me why it's not a religion. Tell me what a relationship is exactly."^[7]

THE PROBLEM: The commentary asserting that this phrase "intends to divert criticism" is unfounded and, in most cases, factually incorrect.

Regardless of what the 'source ^[7]' of that example says, the introduction of a distinction between 'religion' and 'relationship' in Christian belief is a conversation STARTER, not a conversation ENDER. It draws attention to the peculiarity of the Christian deity seeking a love relationship rather than ritualized service.

THE EVIDENCE: All of Christian teaching can be boiled down to two commandments: to love God and to love one another:

• But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40 NLT)

This is because "God is love" (1 John 4:7-11 NLT) and no other service we give counts: "If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing" (I Corinthians 13 NLT).

THE SOLUTION: This example is incorrect, misleading, anti-religious, and adds nothing to the discussion so it should be removed.

47.13.201.60 (talk) 02:15, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

In the source it was an example of the strawman fallacy anyway so it was synthesis on the part of the editor who added it. —PaleoNeonate – 07:33, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

"We've had enough of experts"

I haven't come across this idea before today, but I wonder whether Michael Gove's ridiculous comment on expertise should be added to the examples? Gwaka Lumpa (talk) 20:25, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

"It's not that deep"

The commonly-used phrase "it's not that deep" has been co-opted by Gen Z as a sort of thought-terminating cliche--implying that someone has overthought a point or overstated its importance, without ever actually engaging with either claim. I started to add it to the article, but decided not to given that there are no academic sources that list it as such. However, given its prevalence in (particularly young American) vernacular, it might be a helpful addition to the example list. By Googling "it's not that deep", I found several essays (including one in the editorial section of a university newspaper) on the phrase. Thoughts? "" Ephun (talk) 02:05, 25 February 2024 (UTC)