I realized that Twitter hashtags may be the next step in evolution of the thought-terminating clichés. You no longer have to even spell out the cliché; you merely include a reference.
Even outside of Twitter: I think the clichés used to be full sentences; now people simply use a keyword, or an abbreviation. What does this “shortening of thought-terminating clichés” mean? Are people becoming more mindkilled? Or is the world simply more tightly connected, so it is easier to synchronize globally on a meaning of a keyword?
To explain what I mean, the oldest form of the thought-terminating clichés is proverbs. They are usually full sentences, and sometimes you are able to deduce the meaning of the sentence from the sentence itself. Imagine someone who never heard that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. I believe that person, upon hearing the proverb, would still be likely to deduce that apples are believed to be beneficial for the health. (Or maybe this is an illusion of transparency, and they could equally well deduce that apples magically repel doctors the same way garlic repels vampires.)
On the other hand, when you think about modern clichés such as “nice guy”—at the beginning there were a few internet articles explaining what is the supposed new meaning of these words, but now it is assumed that everyone knows, so it is used without an explanation, and the person who sees this usage for the first time could become quite confused. Similarly without context it is difficult to explain why “all lives matter” is supposed to be racist, etc.
So maybe the difference is that the old thought-terminating clichés were supposed to sound like an explanation, but the new ones are used as signals of being internet-savvy; it’s precisely the lack of explanatory power that makes them costly signals.
Similarly without context it is difficult to explain why “all lives matter” is supposed to be racist, etc.
It’s difficult to explain without context why the sounds that make up the word “matter” refer to the concept we commonly understand as “matter”. Terms always get their meaning from the context in which they are used.
I don’t see how knowing a lot of different concepts means that you are mind-killed. Language isn’t the enemy of rationality.
Just a random thought:
I realized that Twitter hashtags may be the next step in evolution of the thought-terminating clichés. You no longer have to even spell out the cliché; you merely include a reference.
Even outside of Twitter: I think the clichés used to be full sentences; now people simply use a keyword, or an abbreviation. What does this “shortening of thought-terminating clichés” mean? Are people becoming more mindkilled? Or is the world simply more tightly connected, so it is easier to synchronize globally on a meaning of a keyword?
To explain what I mean, the oldest form of the thought-terminating clichés is proverbs. They are usually full sentences, and sometimes you are able to deduce the meaning of the sentence from the sentence itself. Imagine someone who never heard that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. I believe that person, upon hearing the proverb, would still be likely to deduce that apples are believed to be beneficial for the health. (Or maybe this is an illusion of transparency, and they could equally well deduce that apples magically repel doctors the same way garlic repels vampires.)
On the other hand, when you think about modern clichés such as “nice guy”—at the beginning there were a few internet articles explaining what is the supposed new meaning of these words, but now it is assumed that everyone knows, so it is used without an explanation, and the person who sees this usage for the first time could become quite confused. Similarly without context it is difficult to explain why “all lives matter” is supposed to be racist, etc.
So maybe the difference is that the old thought-terminating clichés were supposed to sound like an explanation, but the new ones are used as signals of being internet-savvy; it’s precisely the lack of explanatory power that makes them costly signals.
#mindkilled
Edit: Hashtags turned my comment big and bold. Neat. I’m leaving it.
It’s difficult to explain without context why the sounds that make up the word “matter” refer to the concept we commonly understand as “matter”. Terms always get their meaning from the context in which they are used.
I don’t see how knowing a lot of different concepts means that you are mind-killed. Language isn’t the enemy of rationality.