[skrebbel]

Come on, eg "it is what it is" is basically stoic philosophy in a nutshell. That's not a cope, it's a useful way of separating what you can control from what you can't. If the still-closeted overthinkers in this thread want to call that a "Thought-Terminating Cliché" then fine by me but to suggest that none of these can be useful tools is ridiculous.

The article suggests that "further discussion" is always good and my argument is that, well actually, no it isn't. Not always. And especially not when the entire discussion takes place inside of one person's brain.

[FieIsay]

There's an idea that I agree with there, but I think that the low resolution of the phrase holds within it ambiguity which is conflating different intents and different effects across different contexts: I see "we shouldn't try to control it" as quite different from "it can't be changed", and the use to oneself of such a phrase is much different from using it in response to the concerns of others. I'd suggest that the article is using this phrase as an example for some cases with a particular set of possible intents, which doesn't preclude all possible uses, nor that they might be 'non-negative', as you're suggesting here. Similar cases can be made for some of the other examples; this shows that they're not absolutes, but it doesn't show that they can't be used in a context where their effect is less a healthy affirmation on the limits of responsibility and effort, and more of an unconsidered dismissal of responsibility outright—and I don't even see that the article paints the essential dismissal of the concept as inherently negative, only that dismissal is occurring. I can clearly see it being legible with a negative tone, though, particularly given some of the examples.

I wouldn't say the article suggests that there should always be further discussion, either, only that these phrases tend to shut it down. I don't see such evaluative statements around the examples of that term at all. Does it seem like I'm missing something?

[anthonyrstevens]

>> and the use to oneself of such a phrase is much different from using it in response to the concerns of others

Quite right.