The absolutely last thing I want to do is air dirty laundry at the drop of a hat but I have to say, I’ve noticed an unimaginable increase in clichés and hyperbole. It’s hard to swallow, and I suppose I should remember that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, but I just don’t know how to find anything good in this endless stream of hackneyed sayings and trite expressions. Oh well, what’s good for the goose…
Why do we think we’re saying something profound when we utter some stupid piece of dreamed up nonsense of doubtful origin? Over and over, I see clichés parading about as though they mean something interesting. Why do clichés get a pass on the requirements of truth and reflection? Are we tapping into some ancestral reservoir of truth that I don’t know about? Is there a magical alchemy of repetition at work that turns leaden phrases into intellectual gold?
Wtf?
I have noticed an increase in the use of these clichés over the years as I grade papers and exams. Why? What on earth is going on? Especially if it’s a big-ticket item like love, existence, beauty, or goodness. I get things like “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and “Love will set you free,” and all sorts of thoughtless nuggets of treasured and timeless wisdom. What’s worse is that these things come at the expense of actual reflection and thought. Throw a cliché into your essay, and instant brain freeze. Thought stops happening since the ultimate trump card has just been played. You can’t gainsay timeless wisdom.
I wonder if there is a fear of public thinking? It isn’t just the clichés, after all. I think it’s a general fear of thinking, especially thinking out loud. The hardest assignment I ever gave – bar none – was the assignment of a “Meditation book.” We were reading Marcus Aurelius for an Intro class. I made the broad argument that most philosophers do not begin in esoteric regions of abstract thought but instead look to the world around them (or inside them) for insight. Socrates is faced with the immediate and pressing question of the nature of piety given his concrete situation before the Athenian court. Hume wanted to think about the contents of our thought. Descartes wanted to see if he could know anything with certainty. In so many cases, I argued, philosophers begin by looking around at the most obvious of things and asking questions. Things like being, existence, nature, beauty, etc., become important by looking around, living life, and thinking about what you are doing. So that’s what I wanted them to do. I wanted them to look around, notice their every day life, reflect on it, and write down what occurred. To write down their thoughts. Not descriptions of their day, not a journal, not a diary. I only wanted them to see the world around them and think about it.
Went over like a lead balloon. They hated it. Said it was enormously difficult, too hard. Too vague and ill-defined. They didn’t know what I was looking for, and they didn’t know what my rubric was going to be as I graded it. Look, I said. And think. Look and think. That’s my rubric. Are you looking? Are you thinking? Are you doing both? Good…you pass.
No dice.
So I’m doing it again. And I’m hitting the same problems. We’ve gone over examples in class. I’ve used contemporary and historical examples from philosophy. I’ve offered comparisons to science, to any disciplined way of knowing. I’ve asked them to talk about their days and we’ve drawn insights from that. Still among the most difficult things I’ve ever asked any class to do.
Why is thinking so hard? Why is it hard to do, and why is it hard to inspire others to do it? Is it our plug-and-chug culture of knowledge? Is it the result of an increasingly anesthetic existence? Is it just laziness? Is it fear of public thinking? What does it mean when the request to look around you and think about what you see fills my students with dread, anxiety and confusion?
I just don’t know.
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