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.
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.
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.
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.
The second one seems to be a bit of an Americanism I’m not really sure what it means. I take it to mean there’s nothing anyone can do about it, e.g. there is a storm coming and you are not sure if it will hit your house or not, whereas the first one means there’s nothing we can do about it but some other human can e.g. above your pay grade/ out of your responsibility.
I don’t think either of these are really thought terminating cliches inherently. The phrase is more for their usage as a rhetorical device to end arguments in certain ways. They become them when they are “used to intentionally dismiss dissent or justify fallacious logic” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_cliché)
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.
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.
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.
I do use it as a thought terminating statement usually when friends have asked me to help. I ask for them to tell me what has happened and then I suggest a forward plan of action. It is very common for people at this point to feel guilty about having to ask for help and also to go down a spiral of putting all the blame on themselves. Neither of these things are useful as I need their active help and participation in putting the problem right and that’s where their energy needs to be focussed.
So it this point I will very often say to them something like, “Well, it is what it is and we are where we are and there’s no sense in blaming yourself, let’s see what we can do about getting into a better position.”
I did encounter a proper thought terminating cliche in the form of, “I hear what you’re saying…” from bosses in various places. Means “I hear what you’re saying but I couldn’t give less of a shit about it even if I were prepared to put in the slightest effort, which I am not.”
Yeah, I take them as conclusions, summaries, wrap-ups, basically like “Goodbye” or “Well, I’ll be seeing you”, “It was nice talking to you”, “Welp, time to get back to work”, maybe something more personal like “I’ll see you in an hour at lunch”.
The decision may have already been made to stop / pause for now, but the former (OP) statements themselves do not cause that anymore than the ones I mentioned here.
short circuit cognitive dissonance…
Omg I’m literally dying here - except you know what, I’m actually not? I’m saying that it seems overly dramatic language to me. Like someone who heard those words somewhere and thought they sounded cool, without knowing what they even mean…:-P 😎
Though tbf they probably could be used for that purpose sometimes too, yet that doesn’t mean that is what they are “meant for”?
Right, which stops you from thinking of solutions and ends the discussion. But maybe it's doesn't have to be like that if you just talked it out a little more.
It’s still accepting a shitty situation because it is what it is. While it might show empathy or at least understanding of the situation, it still is just accepting it that way without digging into it further, or trying to change it.
That line is usually the end of the topic. “Yeah, us working folks sure get fucked over, but it is what it is”. Doesn’t continue the thought or conversation. It terminates it
Something that I often say to myself to end contemplation paralysis is “What’s the worst that can happen?” or “What’s the worst case scenario?” If I’m debating trying something in the kitchen. “What’s the worst that can happen? I waste a few cups of flour and some yeast.”
I kinda like ‘its all good’. Which I never took to mean it was good but ‘what you say when things go horribly wrong’ as a joking meaning,aka it’s the situation you can’t change now so just go with it until you can change things.
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