I love thought terminating cliches. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by...
Poor, and nonsensical paraphrasing aside, I really do enjoy them because challenging them is amusing in a laconic, snippy kind of way.
"It's not that deep.": "Oh good, I won't have to keep going much longer".
"Lies of the Devil.": "Yeah, but you never want to talk about the lies of god, so here we are."
"Stop thinking too much.": "Don't give me orders, you fucking cop."
"You clearly care way too much about this topic.": "Oh dang! My bad. How much caring is just right?"
"There are worse things in life to worry about.": "Oh yeah? More relevant to what we're talking about? What? Sounds like something else I'd like to discuss!"
"Here we go again.": "Rain falls. Fire burns. When the fuel is spent, the discussion will be over, and not until then."
"So what? What effect does my action have?": [contextual; but something along the lines of "the effect that I'm describing to you", or "it depends on your actions? The question is what effect do you want to have, and then we can work backwards to your actions".]
"Let people enjoy things.": "Sorry, which part of my concern makes it impossible to enjoy things?"
I could go on. I did leave out "It's all good.", though. I don't think I've ever had someone try to use that on me as a way to stop me from arguing. Mostly to stop me from trying to do something for them. "Let me get you a pillow!", "Oh, no, it's all good." That doesn't really seem like what we're talking about here. And I left out "Let's agree to disagree.", because it's too direct for me to consider it here? Like...it's not an evasion of an argument to say "I don't want to have an argument". That's just, straight up, holding a firm position. We don't have to agree to disagree, we can just disagree. But, either way, what you're trying to say is "I'm not going to discuss this with you", not "I don't think you should think about this." It's a different thing.
What I'm really getting at, though, is that none of these are particularly thought-terminating. Even though I agree they are annoying for people to try to deflect with, that's really my issue with all deflection. Doesn't really hinge on their poor use of rhetorical device. Almost every use of rhetoric is flawed in some way. The best way I've found to avoid these frustrations and those with other deflections, is to just run them down to their natural conclusion, maintaining the "north star" that we're both earnestly trying to reach a settled position on this discussion/argument. The second that stops seeming to be the case, things are better left unresolved and we SHOULD terminate the discussion. But as long as we can all be cowed back into the goal of mutual satisfaction, there's no reason to let irritating phraseology rattle you.
Ah! That's interesting! I've never actually had that be difficult at all. Every time I ask "I'm just trying to get X. Is that something you can speak to?", I get a pretty concise answer, even if the response itself is meandering and non-committal (that's a "no", if you're unclear).
Would you have an example of a discussion where you weren't able to determine if both people were working towards the same goal?
Poor, and nonsensical paraphrasing aside, I really do enjoy them because challenging them is amusing in a laconic, snippy kind of way.
"It's not that deep.": "Oh good, I won't have to keep going much longer".
"Lies of the Devil.": "Yeah, but you never want to talk about the lies of god, so here we are."
"Stop thinking too much.": "Don't give me orders, you fucking cop."
"You clearly care way too much about this topic.": "Oh dang! My bad. How much caring is just right?"
"There are worse things in life to worry about.": "Oh yeah? More relevant to what we're talking about? What? Sounds like something else I'd like to discuss!"
"Here we go again.": "Rain falls. Fire burns. When the fuel is spent, the discussion will be over, and not until then."
"So what? What effect does my action have?": [contextual; but something along the lines of "the effect that I'm describing to you", or "it depends on your actions? The question is what effect do you want to have, and then we can work backwards to your actions".]
"Let people enjoy things.": "Sorry, which part of my concern makes it impossible to enjoy things?"
I could go on. I did leave out "It's all good.", though. I don't think I've ever had someone try to use that on me as a way to stop me from arguing. Mostly to stop me from trying to do something for them. "Let me get you a pillow!", "Oh, no, it's all good." That doesn't really seem like what we're talking about here. And I left out "Let's agree to disagree.", because it's too direct for me to consider it here? Like...it's not an evasion of an argument to say "I don't want to have an argument". That's just, straight up, holding a firm position. We don't have to agree to disagree, we can just disagree. But, either way, what you're trying to say is "I'm not going to discuss this with you", not "I don't think you should think about this." It's a different thing.
What I'm really getting at, though, is that none of these are particularly thought-terminating. Even though I agree they are annoying for people to try to deflect with, that's really my issue with all deflection. Doesn't really hinge on their poor use of rhetorical device. Almost every use of rhetoric is flawed in some way. The best way I've found to avoid these frustrations and those with other deflections, is to just run them down to their natural conclusion, maintaining the "north star" that we're both earnestly trying to reach a settled position on this discussion/argument. The second that stops seeming to be the case, things are better left unresolved and we SHOULD terminate the discussion. But as long as we can all be cowed back into the goal of mutual satisfaction, there's no reason to let irritating phraseology rattle you.