I disagree with any fad phrase (emerged in a year or so and suddenly used by everyone, the media, etc) to explain deep rooted human psychology, society, etc.
It just leads to a fashionable, shallow, understanding of any subject it concerns. And just as it come into existence, it will go out of fashion in a decade or so. We have had such terms in every decade, from all sides of the political spectrum.
Disagreeing with anything you deem a "fad phrase" has literally zero more intellectual rigor than those who follow them. You're using the same metric just backwards.
If I say "X is wrong" it doesn't mean I advocate -X ("the same metric just backwards"). I just say "don't use X". How about that?
Notice also how I didn't say I "Disagree with anything said using what I deem a fad phrase".
As I wrote I just disagree with the fad phrases themselves. One can write something right and clever even while using a fad phrase.
But they would have done better to write their arguments/thinking without resorting to fad phrases (is my point).
There's still the ages old, definition of what you want to say, in simple words (or more nuanced ones), without using pre-made, overplayed so that every source attaches their own irrelevant nuances, played to death, and ill-defined, framings.
That doesn’t make much sense. It’s like saying regarding with skepticism any market mania, hype, or any arbitrary claim without evidence, is the same as getting caught up in the hype. There are thousands of possible fads you can participate in. Being a skeptic and demanding proof is not equivalent to abrogating all standards.
>That is not skepticism, that's denial of anything remotely popular because of its popularity, not because of what it entails or puts forward.
Generally speaking, it's healthy (and good skepticism) to be suspect of "anything remotely popular because of its popularity". Not rejecting it outright, but being suspect of it. New things need to prove themselves. How is this in any way controversial?
That said, I didn't advocate rejecting "anything remotely popular". I said I reject "fad phrases", not "all new phrases" or "all popular phrases".
Fad: "a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal"
That is, small terms that emerge out of nothing, are widely adopted from different sides for different purposes, are overloaded with different meanings, and after making their rounds, go out of fashion. And I specifically added the qualification that I'm mostly rejecting those supposed to address deep psychological/societal issues.
The dismissal of "what it entails or puts forward" is already present in my usage of "fad". I don't think those terms entail or put forward something significant, and they usually do more to confuse the issues.
(I've been old enough to see several such -- if I had been in the 60s and 70s I've had even more of those, now regarded as dead weight).
It's abouut as rigorously defined as most things in psychology and about as easy to replicate in a lab as most things in psychology. It labels repression of emotions as a bad thing, but you can find a half dozen studies showing people who ignore traumatic events have a faster and healthier recovery than those that don't - and then turn around and find a half dozen studies showing the opposite.
Its main value is as a political tool to try to change people's behavior you disagree with, simply because you don't like it. When it stops being useful, it will be dropped for the next fad.
> It labels repression of emotions as a bad thing, but you can find a half dozen studies showing people who ignore traumatic events have a faster and healthier recovery than those that don'
Genuinely interested in these studies, I didn't know they existed. Can you provide a reference?
So what do you think about "Tree shaking" as a Javascript minification strategy? The phrase ticks each of your boxes for a fad phrase, but I wouldn't consider it to be one.
Literally my first line was "I disagree with any fad phrase (...) to explain deep rooted human psychology, society, etc."
Whereas "tree shaking" is a technical term, used in a precise context to describe a well defined process. Not really different than "compiling", "garbage collection", and so on. And even as a technical term, it's not used by everyone, all the media, etc, heck, not even all the technical media, or all the JS media. You seldom see it.
If we wanted to drop the "to explain deep rooted human psychology, society" part, there are similar fads in the IT domain, but "tree-shaking" is not it.
It just leads to a fashionable, shallow, understanding of any subject it concerns. And just as it come into existence, it will go out of fashion in a decade or so. We have had such terms in every decade, from all sides of the political spectrum.
I'd avoid all such fad/mass-enforced framings...