I never realized there was a term to describe the low-effort phrases that people often use to get other people to shut up.

A thought-terminating cliché (also known as a semantic stop-sign, a thought-stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliché thinking) is a form of loaded language—often passing as folk wisdom—intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point.[1][2] Some such clichés are not inherently terminating, and only becomes so when used to intentionally dismiss, dissent, or justify fallacies.[3]

The term was popularized by Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, who referred to the use of the cliché, along with “loading the language”, as “the language of non-thought”.[4]

  • vaultdweller013
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    5 days ago

    Sadly this is coming from my grandmother whomst I live with. Luckily we have everything set up so that if we do get into a fight it just means I need to figure out what to get for dinner.

    • zqps
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      5 days ago

      Yeah.

      Closely related I feel is the notion that people grow more conservative as they get older. Also heard that one mostly from people barely older than me. While over the past decade I’ve noticed the opposite in myself.

      • qevlarr@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        It’s a leftover from ye olden days when upward economic mobility was still a thing, and women and minorities still knew their place. Boomers gonna boomer

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          I had it told to me by a very conservative civics teacher. Lots and lots of garbage taught in that class.

      • Taleya@aussie.zone
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        4 days ago

        You only get more conservative if you have a position of privilege to maintain. Was once quite commonly obtained with age.

        That shit ain’t happening any more