© Roger M Tagg 2011
Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.
This book is a somewhat academic 'social science' look at the phenomenon of 'clichés'. The author seems to want to make an ideological point out of it, whereas most of us might be forgiven for thinking that clichés are just a sort of 'shorthand' - i.e. ways of making a point economically by using a 'standard' phrase rather than finding new words each time.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Intro | By clichés, the author ('ACZ') means 'trite' words or phrases that we commonly use without much thought, and where we don't expect thought from the listener or reader either. | |
| 5 | "Usually, individuals are rather apprehensive about any form of critique or relativization of their clichés; they (any criticisms) seem to cut deeply into their emotional life." | |
| "The modern scientist, for example, watches over the axioms and tenets of his 'paradigm', just as the pre-modern priest guards his doctrines and the pre-modern magician hides his secret formulas ... shaking up a society's clichés is as hazardous an enterprise as trying to overthrow its institutions." | ||
| When a society modernizes, "... the art of conversation is increasingly forgotten. Instead, modern man has become a virtuoso in chatter" (e.g. chit-chat at parties, TV chat shows). People phone instead of writing letters [RT: but they do send emails]. "In this chatter there is no room for reflection." | ||
| 5-6 | Clichés have the "capacity to by-pass reflection and to thus unconsciously work on the mind, while excluding potential relativizations" (by which people could weigh their worth and value). | |
| 6 | "Sheer repetition" helps this process. ACZ says that human beings can never (totally) dispose of clichés. "We need them for our daily interactions and for the functioning of society at large." | |
| 1 - Definition | 10 | A cliché has lost its original power "due to repetitive use in social life". "It fails positively to contribute meaning ... (but) ... it manages to stimulate behaviour ... while it avoids reflection on meanings." [RT: I wouldn't say a cliché has no meaning, but it has probably superseded its original meaning (like so many abbreviated quotes from Shakespeare, like "winter of discontent"). But there is usually a 'practical' meaning at the moment it is used.] |
| 11 | Clichés are "containers of old experiences". [RT: a bit like 'apps' or 'subroutines on a computer?] | |
| 11-12 | Clichés don't have to be verbal - one could include things like shaking hands, kissing cheeks, student sit-ins and demos, strikes, gestures, film, book and play plots - even kitsch in art and music (he instances 'Warsaw Concerto' as an alleged pastiche of Rachmaninoff clichés). | |
| 13 | Clichés can be adjectives that are 'always' used, e.g. 'fresh' vegetables, 'exhaustive' enquiries etc. | |
| Clichés can become a kind of 'brainwashing' used by powerful leaders, pressure groups or organizations. | ||
| 14 | Clichés often 'trigger' speech and behaviour in others, as if they were reflexes. Examples "last but not least" (by a public speaker), "y'know" in conversation. | |
| Interjections (by the person who is mainly listening, or reading) can be clichés, e.g. "really!" (neutral), "bloody hell!" (playing shocked), "do you really think so?" (polite disagreement). These aren't really part of a message - ACZ calls them 'meta-talk'. | ||
| 15 | Slogans are more deliberately constructed than clichés, but they often reinforce clichés. | |
| 16 | ACZ talks about the 'reified' nature of clichés - presumably in the sense of treating them as objects to be made use of. | |
| "If modernization is a process in which meanings and values shift rapidly and continuously - this failing to provide the modern individual with a stable symbolic reality [RT: my italics - I think he's referring to Durkheim's concept of Anomie, but it all sounds a bit like bullshit to me], clichés may come to the rescue." | ||
| "An important part of socialization [RT: adapting to a social group] consists of the teaching and learning of [the group's] cliches and their appropriate emotional reflexes." | ||
| 18-19 | A key point for the whole book is ACZ's definition of 'meaning'. He says it is what enables participants to emotively follow the human interactions they are involved in, and to understand - and to predict - where they are leading. It's what motivates us to keep paying attention and not 'switch off'. However he contrasts 'meaning' and 'function', suggesting that a lot of our concern is in just 'getting things done', without thinking about their meaning. [RT: My own view is that the residual meaning of a cliche, if it is meant to trigger our response or action without any reflection, still counts as 'meaning' - it's just a very practical or routine meaning - the speaker or writer wants us to do or say something. It seems ACZ's view of 'meaning' is nearer to 'the meaning of life', or 'the reason why we are doing or saying these things'.] | |
| 19 | If a speaker gets intelligent questions, he can probably assume that what he said did have 'meaning' - it's the opposite to "losing one's audience". | |
| 20 | ACZ defines 'function' as what gets things to happen independently of any understanding or following of the drift. His example is learning multiplication tables by heart. | |
| 21 | At one point he contrasts 'meaningless' nature with 'meaningful' human culture, but then says that is erroneous. [RT: I reckon we can get a meaningful look from a dog, or even a meaningful impression from a bombed city or a landscape in drought.] | |
| 22-3 | He states that even granted that religion has been penetrated by magic (programmed behaviour, 'mana' residing in repetitiveness), individuals still have to understand and accept certain theoretical tenets or doctrines about man and the world, and to identify with fellow-believers - and the founders of the religion. [RT: one expects this from an ex Theology student. And maybe, if one includes agnostic and atheist philosophies, then it's true. The problem today seems that, in the West at least, there are so many tenets and doctrines to choose from, and many reject magic, repeated incantations and supernatural explanations.] | |
| 23 | ACZ mentions Weber's term 'prophetic ethos' - the role of religion in saying where human life is all heading; this implies things like redemption, judgment day, world to come etc. He tries to differentiate this from 'magic', but not very convincingly [RT: to my mind, at least. Weber studied religions across the world, but was not religious himself.] | |
| He claims that only Calvinistic puritanism - and the Old Testament prophets - made any significant stand against magic's domination of religion. He dismisses Robinson (of Honest to God) rather curtly. [RT: I suppose it's true that Robinson (like Karl Barth before and Spong after) haven't killed off recent revivals of supernaturalist religion.] | ||
| 24 | He tries to paint magic as 'functional rationality' [RT: I think that's silly]. He seems to be trying to align 'meaning' with religion as 'wertrational' (i.e. rational in terms of value) and 'function' (with magic!) as 'zweckrational' (i.e. rational in terms of goals). To quote: "Religion is substantially rational; man and the world are viewed and interpreted in terms of meanings and moral categories." [RT: OK, religion can be internally rational, and one can agree that this is its purpose. But I think it's wrong to imply two classes of rationality. Surely things are complementary.] | |
| 24-5 | [RT: However in his chapter conclusion, he does seem to have made the point that modernity gives more priority to 'getting things done' than to thinking about value and 'worth'. I'd argue that this is largely because we are 'doing many more things' these days. Anyway, apart from a few monks and clerks, I don't reckon that pre-modern people were thinking any more meaningfully - they were struggling to keep going, just like us. But ACZ seems to have nostalgia for an idealized and long-gone 'golden age' of reflective contemplation.] | |
| 2 - The Clichégenic | ACZ talks about a 'clichégenic' society as one which is fertile for the development of clichés. One example is "when in a society religion and religious explanations of the world are totally subdued to magic and magical manipulations of reality." | |
| Society | 28 | He contrasts clichés with Walter Benjamin's concept of 'aura', which is "uniqueness, distance and permanence" in art, but which gets diluted by reproduction. |
| 30 | But ACZ admits that it would be difficult to apply this to the art of the cinema. | |
| He also asks "what about 'charisma'?" - that's a unique thing some people have. | ||
| 30-31 | The enemy of 'aura' and 'charisma' is "routinization" (Weber) or 'bureaucratization". ACZ contrasts a local grocer as opposed to a supermarket. | |
| 32 | He claims that the local grocer "knows his social place" whereas supermarket staff are "non-persons" [RT: I say this is a gross over-statement]. | |
| 33-34 | What about recorded music versus live concerts? Does the music really lose its surprises? [RT: I guess it can if you play the same thing too often, but I find I discover new things each time I listen to some recordings.] | |
| 34 | These days there is a shift of attention from composers to performers. | |
| 35 | The ease with which (he claims) we can ditch our friends and even spouses these days [RT: overstated again] shows a decline in "mutual responsibility, guarded by traditional values and norms". [RT: I'd say this is far too simplistic. Surely there can be genuine and serious relationship problems?] | |
| 36 | Clichés don't have aura - certainly no uniqueness or distance, although maybe some permanence - although not "Bergson's durée, that meaningful uninterrupted sequence of subjectively experienced time, attentively followed by consciousness". [RT: back to the golden age again; and surely 'meaningful' is a cliché itself. Bergson's philosophy is much criticized, in any case.] | |
| 37 | ACZ thinks that individuals face the state or other large organizations 'head on', with no intermediate institutions "to convey meaning". [I suppose he is thinking of a church, or a clan. [RT: but there are things like Trade Unions, women's groups, service organizations like Rotary etc.] | |
| 38-39 | ACZ laments the loss of tradition (in which a person could be meaningfully grounded, especially if it's a religious tradition. [RT: It's just that the traditions are in so much flux, with their old bullshit getting rubbished and the level of human activity getting hotter.] | |
| 39 | ACZ's idea of 'pluralism' in modern society is that we now have to play so many different roles. [RT: that's not the same as religious pluralism though.] | |
| 40 | In a clichégenic society, we get "pre-reflective experiences of meaningless alienation". [RT: I think this means we feel 'pissed-off' before we actually start thinking why.] | |
| 41 | "The free-floating nature of the values, meanings, motives and norms of modern society." [RT: overstatement again - 'fast changing' is more accurate.] | |
| He also claims that Existentialism arose to help people cope with "permanent asking of questions about things we would have previously taken for granted, or accepted from traditional institutions". See the Wikipedia page, which says that in Existentialism, "the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely, in spite of many ... obstacles and distractions". | ||
| 41-42 | In the 'revolts' of the 1960s, " 'meaning' became stranded in irrationalities and snobbish fads", while 'function' carried on regardless". | |
| 42 | Meanings have become arbitrary; they have lost stable ground. | |
| 43 | "Politics has become a kind of gratuitous entertainment, nice to look at, [RT:really?] but morally not binding at all." Only when things get out of hand (i.e. where there is blatant injustice, e.g. the Vietnam War) "will people mobilize successfully." | |
| ACZ alleges that we talk about "education without schools, science without universities, religion without churches, medicare without hospitals, performing arts without churches or concert halls" - which he likens to "swimming pools without water". [RT: I think he misses the point. The reason we have these things is because the institutions have become too constraining. What's wrong with science in industrial research centres, primary health care, street theatre or open-air music? Neither am I against private religion (as long as we do think about it) or home education (as long as the kids do get some social life with their contemporaries).] | ||
| 43-44 | ACZ is very dismissive of a Hollywood star who said in an interview that she wasn't anti-religious but preferred to think for herself. | |
| 46 | He says that clichés are "beacons in the modern free-floating sea of values". | |
| 46-47 | "In the cognitive vagueness [RT: look who's talking!] and emotional instability and moral uncertainty [RT: I don't think these are universal] brought about by modernization, cliches provide the clarity, stability and certainty." [RT: I think they always did - the traditional institutions were just as full of them.] | |
| 47 | Clichés act as substitutes for institutions (that we don't now have). "Man needs the institutional stimulation of behaviour in order to survive in nature, because he lacks an adequately coordinated and equipped set of instincts." [RT: I'd say some people do, but many don't.] | |
| Man "ends up in a rather dangerous subjectivism in which he searches for emotional 'shocks' and 'kicks' ". [RT: ACZ seems to imply that there is some 'objective' reality beyond the consensus of what we can individually perceive - which I think is just as dangerous.] | ||
| 48 | ACZ: clichés "provide the glue" between the now dispersed influences of the various institutions. [RT: this suggests he wants to go back to the middle ages, with the church as the only conduit for knowledge.] | |
| He says that in the 1950s, Existentialism provided the best such clichés; in the 1960s it was Marxism and Freud. | ||
| 49 | Some catholic priests [RT: e.g. Camillo Torres] made 'alliances of convenience' with Marxism, just like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), or the Deutsche Christen and the Nazis. | |
| 50-51 | ACZ looks at this as a preference for 'means' over 'ends', or for 'procedure' above 'outcome'. [RT: Although I agree this is bad, I'd point out that 'ends' corresponds to ACZ's 'function' or zweckrational (zweck in German means purpose, or goal).] | |
| [RT: As an aside on this point, we could ask why people so often blindly follow procedure when they know it may not be the best - or even a feasible - way to achieve the ends? I suspect it's because people see the risks of 'not butt-covering' greater than the rewards of the right outcome being achieved. In other words, it's defensive funk - we can say 'we followed procedure'.] | ||
| 52 | ACZ invokes the term 'elective affinity' to describe a tendency for two things to happen together, or 'mutual stimulation' [RT: a sort of apparent cause and effect without any discernible mechanism. It was the title of a novel by Goethe. It's not a very precise term. I think ACZ picked it up from Weber.] | |
| 3 - Clichés | 55 | Probably, clichés are an indelible element of the human condition. |
| Unbound | 57 | "When among acquaintances, friends, colleagues and family members, we feel almost compelled to interact and talk." We can only manage to do this "if the bulk of it runs off automatically, i.e. without cognition and emotive effort, and with little psychic investment." |
| 58 | Someone who wants to avoid "the use of clichés at all costs, is as tiresome in daily social life as a person who tries to be funny all the time". | |
| 59 | When the clichés don't work any more, "they may trigger utterly irrational, bizarre and violent behaviour". [RT: He is thinking of the persons who go on shooting sprees at schools, shopping centres, camps etc.] | |
| 62 | Clichés (like jokes), in response to difficulties or problems of someone near to us, are not answers - the best they can do is strengthen the morale of the group. Magic (especially in a religious context) has also helped in the past. [RT: We may say, for example, that a person who has just died will be joining their previously deceased loved ones]. So maybe clichés are just the replacement for magic incantations. | |
| 63 | Before there were clichés, institutions played this role. | |
| 64 | Nursery rhymes also had (and maybe still have) a similar role. And we feel uncomfortable when someone 'refuses to play the game'. | |
| 65-66 | Slogans and clichés don't necessarily instantly trigger behaviour; they "prepare people's minds, arouse desire, convince unobtrusively" - and create the feeling that not following them is silly - a bit like brainwashing. | |
| 66 | Clichés have to be repetitive and hyperbolic [RT: i.e. overstated - like many of ACZ's arguments.] "The slogans and clichés of politics are indeed often rude and loud, and very hyperbolic in expression. They try to shock, to jolt people out of the inertia that results from permanent reflection, without allowing them however to effectively ponder on their (i.e. the clichés') semantic content (i.e. what they actually mean)." | |
| 67 | Speakers and writers seem to have to be even more hyperbolic to influence 'intellectual' customers. ACZ gives examples of the blurb used to sell academic books. [RT: I guess it's because such people think they have 'seen it all before'.] | |
| 68-69 | Clichés abound in propaganda; he highlights Catholic (but also Protestant), Nazi, Cold War, Left and Right usage. | |
| 70 | In 1946, George Orwell wrote "The word 'Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable'." Many words, including 'Democracy' are often used dishonestly [RT: e.g. German 'Democratic' Republic - it may have offered good social services, but the voters didn't really have the power to kick out the rulers]. | |
| 71 | The term 'Humpty Dumpty' meaning 'whatever I choose to mean' in the use of words is now recognized in Fowler. ACZ examples: 'peaceful co-existence' = 'cold war'. | |
| 72 | Groups use clichés as tests for strangers, just as the Gileadites in the bible used to use 'shibboleth' as a test word for Ephraimite infliltrators (who couldn't pronounce it properly) - or Dutchmen used 'Scheveningen' which Germans couldn't get right. | |
| 73-74 | "The jargon of modern specialists is inescapably cliché-ridden." [RT: - sociology included. I guess practitioners want to distinguish themselves from the common herd, and to sound scientific.] | |
| 4 - | 75 | ACZ says that 'clock' (or 'objective') time has superseded 'subjective' time, and that's why people experience more boredom in modern life |
| Clichés and
Boredom | 76 | Because people are not "able to experience time as an ongoing [RT: another cliché], meaningful stream (like Bergson's durée mentioned earlier), i.e. coming from a past, heading for a future, they will increasingly experience boredom, despite the fact that they are often busy and generally object to being lazy". ACZ says he doesn't mean "not knowing what to do with one's time" [RT: for many people, that is a significant cause of boredom. So what does he mean? 'Ennui'? Alienation from the 'same old routine'? Or things taking forever? Or ] For more, see the Wikipedia page on Boredom. |
| 77 | People can become impatient with clichés (especially political ones) when things don't actually turn out that way. They then have two alternatives: abandon the idea, or resort to aggressive or bizarre acts (mentioned earlier). | |
| 78 | There are many "formal situations" where we are familiar with the sequence of events, e.g. football games, fox hunting, agriculture - from 'seed time' to harvest, prayer, discussion, lectures. [RT: but we also have to navigate from one such situation to another.] | |
| 80 | Gnosticism [RT: which he seems to have a bit of a thing about] is "the search for the allegedly redeeming spark of divine light, believed to reside in the depths of the human soul ..." "The Gnostic goes in search of absolute meaning, absolute freedom, absolute truth and absolute time." "In his search the Gnostic is bound [RT: so he says] to rely on all kinds of artificial stimulation: drugs, frantic (and often crudely erotic) rituals, wild fantasies, erratic theories, all sorts of emotional kicks." [RT: I don't think I'm one according to this!] | |
| 81 | Gnosticism is anti-institutional (especially to established religions. [RT: It sounds like believing that one knows the answers to questions about the meaning of life.] ACZ says Hegel was a Gnostic, as would be all builders of philosophical 'systems', e.g. Marx, Freud, Marcuse and Fromm. He claims Gnosticism is bound to lead to boredom [RT: I'm not sure on what grounds]. | |
| 82 | He says that the Fronde (a series of revolts in France around 1650) arose from the boredom of the excluded classes. The kings and their advisers (e.g. Mazarin) excluded both the Parlements and the nobles. | |
| 83 | ACZ says that despite having roles in life, we feel as if we have no power. The Beatles - and pop music generally - laughed at the Establishment, But all this "yielded few political facts". [RT: i.e., they didn't really make much difference. That may have seemed true in 1979, but I reckon the influence of such phenomena does now show up in indirect ways.] | |
| 84 | "Speech becomes gross and hyperbolic, music loud and nervous, ideas giddy and fantastic, emotions limitless and shameless, actions bizarre and foolish, whenever boredom reigns." | |
| "Many individuals seem to join a revolutionary movement not because they are strongly attracted by its programme, but because of its tedium-breaking shock-value." | ||
| 85 | A 1960s revolutionary student leader said later "We really felt we were going to overthrow the government in two or three years". | |
| 85-86 | Marx's Das Kapital, along with the bible, was probably the most bought - and least read - book of the 19th and 20th centuries. | |
| 86 | "It is not enough to excite people with ... (slogans). In order to keep such a movement together, one needs the totalitarian control of party discipline." | |
| Adherents "want no discipline; they want an experience, and to feel emotion". | ||
| "When its (the movement's) clichés have become boring, they can regain their stimulating effect by means of sheer, planless activism." [RT: i.e. never mind where it's all heading, let's at least do something noticeable.] | ||
| 87 | "Only deeds can bring about new 'life', 'aura' or 'charisma'." But such deeds are not necessarily good - e.g. Hitler. | |
| 5 - Clichés Bound | [RT: This chapter is in contrast to chapter 3 'Clichés Unbound' - i.e. without limit; it addresses how - and how far - clichés might be limited. The allusion is to an ancient Greek play 'Prometheus Bound' (around 420 BC) and a much later one 'Prometheus Unbound' by Shelley (1820). As the Wikipedia page says, "Essentially, Prometheus Unbound, as re-wrought in Shelley's hands, is a fiercely revolutionary text championing free will, goodness, hope and idealism in the face of oppression." That doesn't sound like Zijderveld's views.] | |
| 88 | "The Gnostic is caught in the web of his clichés." [RT - I'd say the same about most adherents of the established churches.] | |
| "Marxist practice 'routinized' into a massive bureaucracy." | ||
| 89 | "Religion may be, idealtypically [RT: yer what?], described as the provider of meanings." [RT: probably only in ACZ's narrower sense of 'meaning'. And it certainly isn't the only such provider.] | |
| 91-92 | "A Jeremiah or Muhammed, a Jesus or Calvin ... would (today) in no way be rejected" (which would imply their message was taken seriously. Their message) "would be looked on as 'something quite interesting'." | |
| 92 | ACZ says 'no' to 'scientism' (by which he means thinking that "science will enable man to know reality objectively, ... while religion's knowledge of reality will remain subjective, metaphysical and generally mythological". [RT: I agree with the first part; science should not pretend to reveal objective reality. It proceeds from tentative consensus to tentative consensus, depending along the way on repeatable observation and experiment with rational discussion. On the second part, I agree that religion's view of reality must remain subjective, but again there will be consensus(es). The problem is that there may be as many consensuses as there are divergent religions and sects, whereas scientific consensuses tend to converge over time. Personally, I agree that religion could do with less Metaphysics and Mythology - but it has to satisfy its market, and many people would rather have myths and stories than 'boring' rationalism. I cannot think about this without thinking of the TV programme 'MythBusters'!] | |
| Weber (mentioned earlier) "viewed science as a rather unintended consequence of rationalization caused by prophetic 'religions of redemption' ". [RT: sounds like nonsense, but maybe he meant 'as a reaction against established religions imposing their view of 'reality' in spite of the coming of Arabic mathematics, telescopes, microscopes etc'.] | ||
| 93-96 | [RT: overall, ACZ seems very weak in his view of science and the scientific method.] | |
| 98 | Kitsch (again) is the result of clichés in the Arts. | |
| 99 | Kitsch calls for feeling, not thought. [RT: sometimes what we want is feeling. Why should all Art call for thought?] | |
| 100 | ACZ says that the composer Mahler put together bits of kitsch, but managed to make the whole rise above it. | |
| 102 | Humour can be used to ridicule clichés, but can itself become clichéd. | |
| 103 | The appearance of a stranger, who isn't familiar with a group's clichés, can sometimes dampen the tyranny of those clichés. | |
| 104 | So also can a dialogue between a lecturer and a student, an expert and an apprentice, or a professional and a dilettante - because the person 'in the know' may have to explain the cliché to the other [RT: the one who is 'playing catch-up' - now that's a good example of a cliché.] | |
| Appendix | 106- 113 | He spends several pages saying why he prefers 'cultural sociology' (which deals with 'ideal types', speculation, value, 'freedom' - and is not 'functional') over 'scientific sociology' (which is empirical, falsifiable, repeatable, quantified and pragmatic). He does however admit that both have their place. |
I think Zijderveld rather overplays his bias in this book. He is an ex-Theology student, probably of Catholic persuasion. He sees his religion as the only thing that can give us meaning, yet he is pessimistic about our ability to fight the flood of clichés we have to endure, unless we go back to the Middle Ages (rather like Alasdair MacIntyre). He isn't really comfortable with modernity at all.
He seems more interested in 'grinding his axe' than studying clichés in action; this tallies with his preference for 'cultural sociology (i.e. speculation and 'ideal types') over 'scientific sociology' (i.e. empirical and evidence-based).
In my view, he did not succeed in explaining the 'sociologese' that he uses, nor the many clichés that abound in sociology - as with any subject.
Words that are 'good' for ACZ: 'substantial', 'objective', 'institutions', 'rational', 'meaningful'. Words that are 'bad' include 'positivist', 'functional', 'facts'.
For more from Max Weber (where ACZ clearly picked up a lot of influence) see this web page.
Index to more highlights of interesting books
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 11th September 2011 ('nine eleven eleven')
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .