• hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    It would have more credibility if we could find and reuse a similar concept/name from an earlier and more “objective” source. Not sure where to start digging, but this has to be something that someone has named previously. Then we’re just popularizing instead of inventing something new.

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      10 months ago

      Maybe. I’d start with the labelling of everything as “terrorist” first. That’s probably got the most. After that is probably like “authoritarian” or some shit.

      The tactic is pervasive.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        10 months ago

        I mean, the “thought terminating cliche” is a really old thing. You know the “Our noble government, their perfidious regime” cartoon? It’s exactly that. Hell, Lenin’s snark about “changing the name of things not changing the thing itself” is a part of it. You can probably find ancient Roman authors commenting on this practice if you look.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          10 months ago

          Right but does it have a name? If it doesn’t have a name, it hasn’t been formalised. Naming it gives you something to attack, it gives you a way to communicate that it’s bad.

          The goal here, in essence, is to use the practice against itself. I want to thought-terminating cliche the tactic of thought-terminating cliches. Give it a name so people can debatebro it as a bad thing that you absolutely should not do every time they see it.