The Tyranny of cliches: Here's one
" I may disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.'
The teacher will nod proudly when his student says this. However such a response is a mindless cliché leveraging the speakers way to a kind of bravery on the cheap. "I will defend to the death your right to say it." Oh really.
"Better 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man go to jail".
such a clichés should open up debate not close it with a cliché
The appeal of clichés
There is something endemic in cliches— one of the reasons why some of these cliches appeal, why they have power, why they move men, is because they appeal to the hard-wiring in our human nature. We're all built from the crooked timber of humanity; we all want to live in groups; we all want to live in tribes; we all want to, you know, band together and do good things.
On political calls for unity
"This is one of the cliches that Obama invokes all the time, this idea of unity. That somehow ... if we could all act like a military unit, like the one that took out bin Laden, or if we were all just unified — if we all tried our hardest and made this the best yearbook ever! — that somehow this would be a much better country. Well, that's not what this country is about. Our country, if you read the Federalist Papers, is about disagreement. It's about pitting faction against faction, divided government, checks and balances. The hero in the American political tradition is the man who stands up to the mob — not the mob itself."
" I may disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.'
The teacher will nod proudly when his student says this. However such a response is a mindless cliché leveraging the speakers way to a kind of bravery on the cheap. "I will defend to the death your right to say it." Oh really.
"Better 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man go to jail".
such a clichés should open up debate not close it with a cliché
The appeal of clichés
There is something endemic in cliches— one of the reasons why some of these cliches appeal, why they have power, why they move men, is because they appeal to the hard-wiring in our human nature. We're all built from the crooked timber of humanity; we all want to live in groups; we all want to live in tribes; we all want to, you know, band together and do good things.
On political calls for unity
"This is one of the cliches that Obama invokes all the time, this idea of unity. That somehow ... if we could all act like a military unit, like the one that took out bin Laden, or if we were all just unified — if we all tried our hardest and made this the best yearbook ever! — that somehow this would be a much better country. Well, that's not what this country is about. Our country, if you read the Federalist Papers, is about disagreement. It's about pitting faction against faction, divided government, checks and balances. The hero in the American political tradition is the man who stands up to the mob — not the mob itself."
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