Editing Thought-terminating cliché (section)

== Origin and definitions ==
{{Quote box
| quote = The language of the totalist environment is  characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized, and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.
| source = ''[[Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism]]'', Chapter 22: "Ideological Totalism"
(1961)
| align = Right
| title = R. J. Lifton's definition
| width = 400px
}}

The earliest recorded definition of the term was published in [[Robert Jay Lifton]]'s book ''[[Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism]]'' in 1961 wherein he was describing the structure of language used by the [[Chinese Communist Party]], defining the term as "the start and finish of any ideological analysis". It was listed as the sixth (of eight) totalistic themes.<ref name="cliche">{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FU_ifHrIIg0C&pg=PA429|title=Thought reform and the psychology of totalism: A study of brainwashing in China|last=Lifton|first=Robert J.|publisher=[[UNC Press]]|year=1989|isbn=9780807842539|edition=reprint|via=Google Books|page=429|chapter=Chapter 22, Ideological Totalism|orig-year=1961}}</ref> The term is written under the sixth (of eight) criteria for thought reform 'Loading the Language', of which various authors and scholars also consider the term to be a form of [[loaded language]].<ref name="cliche" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BfwBBAAAQBAJ&q=%22thought+terminating+cliche%22&pg=PT186|title=Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?|last=Bufe|first=Charles|date=1 December 1997|publisher=See Sharp Press|isbn=1884365752|edition=2nd, revised|via=Google Books|chapter=Chapter 9: Is AA a Cult?|orig-year=1991}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vVhPATI2woYC&q=Thought-terminating|title=Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control|last=Taylor|first=Kathleen|date=27 July 2006|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0199204780|edition=illustrated, reprint|via=Google Books|pages=17, 21|chapter=The birth of a word|orig-year=2004}}</ref>

[[Chaz Bufe|Charles 'Chaz' Bufe]] in his book ''Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?'' (1997) broadly put the use of the cliché as "thought-stopping phrases (that) include any use of the language, especially repeated phrases, to ward off forbidden thoughts" in describing his interactions with the [[Alcoholics Anonymous]] aid movement.<ref name=":0" /> Author, show-host and doctor Robert 'Bo' Bennett described the term as describing a substitute for "a person's actual position or argument with a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of the position of the argument" in his 2017 book ''Logically Fallacious'', along with a proposed logical form of the cliché: "Person 1 makes claim Y. Claim Y sounds catchy. Therefore, claim Y is true."<ref name=":2" />

The ''[[Southern California Law Review]]'', Volume 51, Part 1, describes the use of such clichés as "to capture the vehicles of thought and communication; 'Doctrine over reality' (which includes the rewriting of history and reinterpretation of one's past)" and as a property of "ideological totalists".<ref>{{cite journal |year=1978 |title=Religious Totalism: Gentle and Ungentle Persuasion Under the First Amendment |url=https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1402&context=fac_articles |journal=[[Southern California Law Review]] |volume=51 |page=68 |last=Delgado |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Delgado}}</ref>

Bennett explains that exceptions are made to the use of phrases that would otherwise be considered thought-terminating if they are used in addition to evidence or strong claims.<ref name=":2" />