![]() ![]() To claim cliche, is to make a claim about one’s own cultural awareness, and to agree or not is a matter of taste. To agree or not is similar to laughing at a joke: either you get the reference or you don’t. It is either overwrought, in which case a careful observer is certain to notice, or it is not. To explain why a certain phrase or plot or response comes off as cliche is counter productive. If a thing is cliche, the fact should be self evident. The peculiar power of the claim that something is cliche is that it requires no evidence. We are okay being quirky, bizarre, macabre, grotesque, just so long as we are not cliche. To call something cliche in the modern world is among the cardinal condemnations. The idea that thoughts and prayers are easy, a button that is clicked, a cliche that allows the speaker to avoid dealing with the real horror of the situation, exposes a noxious attitude towards cliche that must be earnestly addressed. So The problem, in short, is that the phrase is cliche. The criticism at a lower level is not that thoughts and prayers require nothing of us in a physical sense but that it requires nothing of us in an intellectual and emotional sense. But the second and more concrete aspect of the critique is the most deleterious. The surface of the complaint remains dull and vague and harmless as there is no proof that thoughts and prayers are ineffective or damaging and nothing but assumptions that people who send thoughts and prayers are not in fact more engaged in the tasks of politicking, money lending, and blood donating. Perhaps donating blood is another “better” alternative, but there is no evidence that the people sending thoughts and prayers are not also donating blood. With issues of the state our vote, our voice, our phone call, is almost always ineffectual. I have sincere doubts that calling a senator would prove particularly effective at accomplishing anything. What that more effective task might be remains uncertain. The heart of this first criticism is not that thoughts and prayers are ineffectual, but that those who are sending thoughts and prayers ought to be doing something else, something more effective. So while it is commonly believed that thoughts and prayers are ineffective at generating any tangible change by both the religious and empiricists, neither group of people ought to be so convinced-the religious for their religion’s sake and the empiricists for scientific purity.īy admitting that the effectuality of thoughts and prayers will forever remain unprovable, the first part of the critique is still not entirely resolved. But whether or not thoughts and prayers are effective at limiting gun violence is nearly impossible to prove or disprove due to the fact that both thoughts and prayers are intensely private and unobservable. Few people (religious or nonreligious) will stand by thoughts and prayers as a method for limiting gun violence. The surface of the critique is hard to dismiss and seems undeniably true. Though witty, the critique falls flat in both instances. The obvious criticism is that sending thoughts and prayers is ineffective and the deeper and more subversive critique is that sending thoughts and prayers is cliche and easy-like clicking a button. But, predictably, no matter how many times a player clicks one button or the other, the deaths continue to rise. Ostensibly, by clicking the buttons the player is working to stop that number from rising. The buttons were labeled “Thoughts,” and “Prayers.” When the game starts, a number in the middle of the screen begins to increase exponentially indicating the number of deaths in the USA by gun violence. By clicking on a link you became a player and were instructed to click two buttons over and over again. The most creative of these complaints took the form of a game. Throughout my social media channels I came across a common and cliche response which read, “sending thoughts and prayers.” The next day I encountered several reactions to these responses which criticized them for their seemingly trivial and laissez-faire approach to a tragedy which took over 50 lives. ![]() This was made evident to me once again after the Las Vegas shooting. And that below what can only be called “non-cliche,” by which I mean words and deeds of originality, is often the fumbling of the insincere. To join the conversation and suggest edits, please use the google doc.īy now we ought to know that below cliche is often the deepest sincerity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |