Cliches are Thought Killers
Memorizing words is not a substitute for true understanding
Something that seems to have become a driver in my creative life is fighting against lazy thinking. The basis for Missing Pages was to determine for myself if the history I learned was actually completely wrong. I found that there were broad assumptions that were baked into the analysis of the open letter that sparked this endeavor. However, these assumptions didn't seem to have strong backing, at least from my own memory of the class. From what I could tell, they were merely tacking on language that was trendy among young progressive types. Ideas about decolonization, anti-racism, and the battle against white supremacy was littered throughout the text. Rather than actually analyzing the material and giving concrete examples, they were using cliches as the basis for their call to action. This trend had been growing prior to 2020, but I believe that the cliches have begun to seep into nearly every online space.
To me, much like narratives, cliches are unavoidable. They can be very useful short-hand for complex ideas. However, because they are much more pithy, they can sometimes leave out so much detail that the truth is lost, thus rendering them useless. They also require much more work to dissect where the basis for the ideas within originated. Cliches that are built from other cliches end up being worthless turns of phrase that are meaningless and nearly impossible to refute. In the framing that I have worked out, narratives require some sort of learning. Whether that learning leads to the truth is another matter, but they require stringing together discordant ideas to create a single thread. This thread then allows for more information to be added to build them or used to destroy them.
Cliches, however, are much easier to learn and repeat, requiring no thought. If it sounds good enough to be true, and fits within one’s worldview, it may as well be. Cliches are becoming more and more rampant as information streams become shorter and shorter. "Israel is an apartheid state," "America teaches racist history," "the mainstream media is filled with woke bullies." People latch on to these ideas and repeat them ad nauseam. They substitute these for actual understanding. It is like reading a headline and assuming you understand the contents of the article. Only this is worse since there is no article to reference to refute their false idea. They extrapolate so far from the truth that they betray it completely.
Luckily, though, when pushed back on, these statements fall apart, usually quickly. Look at any interview with a protest on a college campus or Trump rally and you hear only empty platitudes and no substance. All sugar, if you will. Because of this, I am optimistic that the more substantive ideas will win out. They are more robust, stand up to scrutiny, and have the energy to spread. They may not spread as rapidly as cliches, but they don't burn out nearly as fast. When a cliche is expounded, one need only ask, "what do you mean by that?" The vapid responses that come after betray the lack of depth of thought incurred. So stand up to them, these glass cannons. It doesn't take much to shatter their weapons. One need only to be willing to face the coming fire.