Inane cliches/truisms you could go the rest of your life without hearing again

[The Mikado]

I'll start off with "The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."  Voltaire has wrecked generations of interesting discussion on a truly unique beast with that stupid one-liner that, besides its severe accuracy problems, also serves to dismiss the topic the second it comes up.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Anything involving the term 'nature' or 'natural'

Oh, this thread could be fun... But that was just a start.

[DC Al Fine]

The Inquisition was this massive totalitarian force

Polish calvary making futile charges at German tanks

Nijas wearing black.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Anything involving the term 'nature' or 'natural'

     The modern usage of the word "natural" drives me up a tree. I really wish we could do away with this silly false dichotomy between "natural" and "artificial".

[barfbag]

whoever smelt it dealt it

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Voltaire was very good at entertainingly phrased thought-terminating cliches, or entertaining phrases that would go on to become thought-terminating cliches. 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him' is another, since regardless of whether or not it is in fact ridiculous, offensive, and anthropologically naive it adds very little to any discussion that couldn't be just as well added in some other, less insufferably cute and smug way.

[afleitch]

In terms of history? The fact that people were nominally 'more religious' in the past or that people were somehow less sexually adventurous. Human behaviour is remarkably stable.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

In terms of history? The fact that people were nominally 'more religious' in the past or that people were somehow less sexually adventurous. Human behaviour is remarkably stable.

While I would disagree with your conclusion here I would agree that those two talking points are particularly annoying.

I would also argue against the idea that we were particularly more brutal, barbarian or savage in the past than now.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

The only one I can think of at the moment is, "people though the world was flat in Columbus's day," simply because it's erroneous.  Just about every educated person in Columbus's time knew that the Earth was round.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The only one I can think of at the moment is, "people though the world was flat in Columbus's day," simply because it's erroneous.  Just about every educated person in Columbus's time knew that the Earth was round.

True.  The reason Columbus had problems getting anyone to sponsor him was that the natural philosophers of the day largely thought the distance between Europe and China was far greater than Columbus supposed it was.  They considered it impossible for a sailing ship to carry sufficient provision to make the journey there and back, and they were right.  The distance was too far to make it to China. What no one apparently considered was there might be unknown lands between Europe and China.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The only one I can think of at the moment is, "people though the world was flat in Columbus's day," simply because it's erroneous.  Just about every educated person in Columbus's time knew that the Earth was round.

True.  The reason Columbus had problems getting anyone to sponsor him was that the natural philosophers of the day largely thought the distance between Europe and China was far greater than Columbus supposed it was.  They considered it impossible for a sailing ship to carry sufficient provision to make the journey there and back, and they were right.  The distance was too far to make it to China. What no one apparently considered was there might be unknown lands between Europe and China.

Actually the Spanish Royals thought it was possible that he would find more islands like the Canaries (then ongoing Spanish Colonization and eradication of the indigenous inhabitants) or the Azores. Which, after the first voyage, was what it seemed Columbus had found.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If we're talking about generalizations about history that are assumed to be true but ain't really so much, then there's a lot of this in the popular view of family and gender in the past.   ex:

women were only property in biblical times

Augustine, Puritans were anti-sex

forced marriages were the rule before feminism, no romantic love before late medieval times

children just considered little adults in premodern times, no sentimentality because of high mortality

the law/society was never concerned with domestic abuse/child abuse/neglect before the late 19th/20th century

confusing matrilineal kinship patterns with matriarchal societies

[tpfkaw]

If we're talking about generalizations about history that are assumed to be true but ain't really so much, then there's a lot of this in the popular view of family and gender in the past.   ex:

women were only property in biblical times

Augustine, Puritans were anti-sex

forced marriages were the rule before feminism, no romantic love before late medieval times

children just considered little adults in premodern times, no sentimentality because of high mortality

the law/society was never concerned with domestic abuse/child abuse/neglect before the late 19th/20th century

confusing matrilineal kinship patterns with matriarchal societies

You can add to that wife-beating being considered acceptable before second-wave feminism and (even more ludicrously) rape being considered acceptable prior to the Violence Against Women Act on the basis of promiscuity or "asking for it."

[Tetro Kornbluth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Never heard of the first one but wife beating only became illegal in Common law systems in the nineteenth century (due to, in part, the influence of nineteenth century feminism). And as for marital rape, at least in Ireland and the UK the first ever prosecutions for that happened in my lifetime...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That depends on what you mean by 'anti-sex' and by 'romantic love'

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Not just mortality but also patterns of work and life. While as a totality it is wrong, the idea is still mostly correct if we compare to any modern notion of 'childhood'.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Wife beating wasn't handled in the same way, but that doesn't mean it was always acceptable or uniformly approved by the law.  It was often grounds for divorce, and in some places there could be civil redress (for instance in the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties).  Elsewhere it was responded to with the folk tradition of "rough music."   Of course there was wide variety and in many places and times there was no redress or response, but that historical variety that is obscured by the generalizations I mentioned is my point.

By "anti-sex" I mean the idea that sex is just a necessary evil that is done only for procreation.  Augustine didn't believe this and the Puritans most emphatically didn't. Romance has been developed as a concept in a particular way in the late medieval and modern era, but the implication when this is mentioned can be that there's nothing we might consider a romantic idea or quality before then and people just shacked up for other reasons.  One need only look to the Song of Songs or Plato's Symposium to show this isn't the case.  Likewise, childhood changes through time but that doesn't mean it was a recent invention or not at all valued before modern times.

[Lief 🗽]

Ninjas wearing black.

They didn't?? What did they wear then?

Something that annoys me from American history is lauding George Washington's farewell address as some brilliant, clear-eyed summary of the political Truth that was meant to be relevant to all future generations, when it was actually just as much a propaganda speech written by Alexander Hamilton to attack the Democratic-Republicans and defend unpopular policies.

Also women in the Middle Ages did not get married and start popping out children when they were 12 or 13, despite what some historical revisionists who are definitely not pedophiles might try to tell you.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Ninjas wearing black.

They didn't?? What did they wear then?

Street clothes to blend in with the rest of the population; sometimes specific sorts of camouflage. The idea of them wearing black comes from the artistic conflation of their 'invisibility' with that of bunraku puppet theater technicians, who do dress the way ninja are commonly supposed to have.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There also didn't tend to be particularly large age gaps in marriages outside the nobility.

[The Mikado]

Augustine, Puritans were anti-sex

Movements that are anti-sex for their lay followers (a necessary distinction to not bring Catholic monks/nuns or Buddhist monks into the picture) tend to run into pretty serious problems pretty quickly.  Catharism may have met its final end at the hands of Crusaders, but a movement mostly reliant on persuading people that are already around instead of encouraging its followers to breed was never going to be long for the world.

Actually, religions that make demands that are utterly unreasonable for the local circumstances in general tend to change course pretty quickly.  I've always been curious as to the brief-lived period of Manichean domination of the Steppe (the Uyghur Empire in modern Mongolia in the 8th century).  Manicheanism's vegetarianism is a kind of absurd demand for steppe nomads that aren't very into the farming lifestyle.

Voltaire was very good at entertainingly phrased thought-terminating cliches, or entertaining phrases that would go on to become thought-terminating cliches. 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him' is another, since regardless of whether or not it is in fact ridiculous, offensive, and anthropologically naive it adds very little to any discussion that couldn't be just as well added in some other, less insufferably cute and smug way.

One of my favorite things ever is the bit in The Brothers Karamazov when little Kolya recites that line and Alyosha keeps asking him what it means and Kolya is flustered as he never thought the line through. 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Voltaire was very good at entertainingly phrased thought-terminating cliches, or entertaining phrases that would go on to become thought-terminating cliches. 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him' is another, since regardless of whether or not it is in fact ridiculous, offensive, and anthropologically naive it adds very little to any discussion that couldn't be just as well added in some other, less insufferably cute and smug way.

One of my favorite things ever is the bit in The Brothers Karamazov when little Kolya recites that line and Alyosha keeps asking him what it means and Kolya is flustered as he never thought the line through. 

Miguel de Unamuno, not somebody who I think always knew what was up but when he nailed it he nailed it, described it in Tragic Sense of Life as a 'repugnant and Sadducean phrase....worthy of the time-serving sceptic to whom it is attributed'.

[barfbag]

I'll start off with "The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."  Voltaire has wrecked generations of interesting discussion on a truly unique beast with that stupid one-liner that, besides its severe accuracy problems, also serves to dismiss the topic the second it comes up.

Very true about the Holy Roman Empire. It was simply a political term for the Catholic Church at its peak. The very first thing we learned in our History of the Middle Ages was that it wasn't Holy, Roman, or an Empire.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'll start off with "The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."  Voltaire has wrecked generations of interesting discussion on a truly unique beast with that stupid one-liner that, besides its severe accuracy problems, also serves to dismiss the topic the second it comes up.

Very true about the Holy Roman Empire. It was simply a political term for the Catholic Church at its peak. The very first thing we learned in our History of the Middle Ages was that it wasn't Holy, Roman, or an Empire.

...no.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

That everyone between the Middle Ages and World War II was a Christian.

[Franknburger]

Empires breaking apart due to internal conflicts / turbulences.

Stops just when it starts to get interesting: Economic crisis? Caused by natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes), climate change (flooding, droughts), changes in regional trade flows?
Distribution imbalance (a small group amassing too much power / wealth)? Over-ambitious reforms, which were not accepted by the population or (parts of) the traditional elite? Dozens of possible causes, that somebody has been too lazy to look into ...

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

"Nixon was a progressive hero" and "No, no, his policies were incredibly right-wing."

[The Mikado]

I'll start off with "The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."  Voltaire has wrecked generations of interesting discussion on a truly unique beast with that stupid one-liner that, besides its severe accuracy problems, also serves to dismiss the topic the second it comes up.

Very true about the Holy Roman Empire. It was simply a political term for the Catholic Church at its peak. The very first thing we learned in our History of the Middle Ages was that it wasn't Holy, Roman, or an Empire.

Frederick II would've been very surprised to hear that he was an agent of the Papacy.  Or Henry IV, for that matter.  (Letter to Gregory VII (January 24, 1076)  "Henry, king not through usurpation but through the holy ordination of God, to Hildebrand, at present not pope but false monk...")