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Thought-terminating cliché

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Thought-terminating cliché

A form of loaded language that can be used to stop arguments from proceeding and end debate.

Ciarán Ryan
Sep 13, 2023
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Thought-terminating cliché

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Thought-terminating cliché

“Person 1 makes claim Y.

Claim Y sounds catchy.

Therefore, claim Y is true.”

Bo Bennett - Logically Fallacious

Thought-terminating clichés can be used to prevent arguments from proceeding by providing a speaker with a largely meaningless phrase they can recite as a false conclusion.

Much of the British public are familiar with thought-terminating clichés due to the political campaigning for the UK to leave the EU. “Brexit means Brexit”, “red, white and blue Brexit”, “no deal is better than a bad deal”, “let’s take back control” etc.

Elsewhere

Thought-terminating cliché - Wikipedia

Politicians saying Brexit means Brexit

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