Hi all. I’m looking for a word that describes a statement that panders to universal desire, that is banal because nobody could possibly disagree with it, the kind of thing used in the most patronisingly populistic items of political propaganda. For example, ‘we want to live in a world in which our children grow up healthy and happy’. Nobody’s going to say ‘boo! we don’t want a world like that!’ It’s not a truism, because that refers to a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting, but the definition would not be dissimilar: a statement that describes a situation that is obviously universally (or nigh on universally) desirable and says nothing new or interesting. I suspect such statements are also often used in (or in combination with) straw men fallacies, where the opponent’s position is exaggerated or distorted to create an obviously undesirable position which then is explicitly coupled with, or perhaps implicitly suggests, a universally desirable opposite situation that the opponent is portrayed as being against.
Leitmotif : only an ambigous description may work here, a world where the gap between a truism and similarity /dissimilarity is literally inadequate to coin a phrase adequate for levels headed usage.
The strawman as platitude would most likely result in optical aberrations rather then misundarstandinga, as the media would like to portray the message.
For the opposite to be enhanced, two descriptive words may be needed : reverse psychology, effectively shifting emphasis , causing an empowersment of illusion masking a hollow, or diffuse insecurities of absence.
“We want to live in a world in which our children grow up healthy and happy.”
Politicians say stuff like that all the time. It works - they get cheers, applause, and votes.
Thanks guys. Some nice suggestions. I’m not convinced by platitude because that suggests something that is hackneyed, trite, overused, whereas I’m looking for a word to describe something that may not have been said (e.g. because the circumstances to which a statement applies may be entirely new) but is nonetheless populist in intent. In other words, simply saying what people would naturally want to hear (transparently so) rather than saying what has been said many times before (as in the case of platitude). Bromide is a nice word, but the OED uses ‘trite’ in its definition as well, so the issue of overuse is present there too. Applause light seems straightforward, a statement intended to generate applause/curry mass favour. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. There must be a technical term though, surely? We have technical terms for everything. If we have words like catachresis and apophasis there must be a technical term for applause light!
It is the profession of philosophers to question platitudes that others accept without thinking twice. A dangerous profession, since philosophers are more easily discredited than platitudes.
-David Kellogg Lewis (From "Convention: A Philosophical Study)
But even philosophers must remain vigilant, don’t you think? Being only human, even they can succumb at times to praise and admiration. Pride is quite capable of pawning truth and the search for truth. The higher the philosopher, the lower he may fall.
