Thought-terminating cliché

A simple concept, such as Good versus Evil, used to convince people to abstain from thinking. To instead uncritically accept a certain narrative or dogma. Thus, thought-terminating clichés can be very potent tools for promoting dichotomism, categorism and narrativism.

The exploration of usage of thought-terminating clichés is a core issue in books such as 1984 and The Banality of Evil.

Note that while any concept may be misused as a thought-terminating cliché, some terms and concepts lend themselves to this far more easily than others. We should therefore strive to build a discourse that discourages this practice.

See also the wikipedia page on this topic.