There has been a discussion over on a php forum I participate in about the least favorite cliches people have. It tends to read more as a litany of colloquialisms people find annoying or offensive rather than a discussion of cliches in their narrative or musical form. No one over there is saying stuff like "Oh how I hate the tear drop motiff in Baroque music! It's so fake and condescending!!" No one has yet opined that they can't stand trite I-IV-V progressions presented as though that were sufficient to be musically compelling. No one has yet groused about the egregious use of the rising major sixth from the tonic to mediant scale degrees after some verklemt chromatic noodling as a way to emotionally manipulate gullible audiences attending Romantic concertos in concert.
By the same measure no one has vented their spleen about the cliche of the lonely special boy or girl who has within themselves the key to unlimited greatness who just needs to withstand all the haters and discover their inner John Galt or Luke Skywalker or Alladin or whatever messiah/chosen one/neo trope you care to employ. No one has complained about the routines of the romantic comedy or the "rebel story". The most pernicous cliches are the ones through which we guide our own lives and understand ourselves, not the figures of speech that streamline and simplify communication. The cliche enquiry of "how was your day?" is not as dangerous as the cliche assumption that you are special and if the world just recognized how special you were life would be better or the cilche assumption that if you just work hard enough you won't really be subject to time and chance as Ecclesiastes warns you that you are.
Perhaps I should suggest that the cliche can be that which aspires to the status of a proverb but is not actually tested and found adequate by the measure of wisdom. Or, perhaps, the cliche does not attain the status of a proverb because it does not contain in it any actual wisdom because it amounts to the sapiential equivalent of "Where ever you go, there you are" or "Things are more like they are now than they have ever been before." A proverb may be a trite expression but a trite expression does not carry the weight of a proverb.
The vituperation over on the forum is generally reserved for the verbal equivalents of "have a nice day". There are comments about how some figure of speech sets their teeth on edge, like "action steps", "corporate speak" or the like. I understand that but none of those are quite on the same level for me as the false empathy and dismissive power of "We all have problems."
Well, I have of late realized that one of my peeves is about a particular rhetorical device that comes up as a blunt change of course in conversation, most often when a person wishes to either redirect a conversation or to tacitly express a lack of empathy in a way that allows them to exonerate themselves. That rhetorical flourish is, "We all have problems."
Yes, but in many cases that gesture can be either the means by which a person chooses not to turn a self-critical eye on themselves or to settle comfortably into not being particularly concerned about someone else. "We all have problems" might better be said as, "Well, see, I don't care because I'm fine, really. We all have problems but mine aren't important and that other person's problems are worse than mine."
You may, perhaps, know how this rhetorical flourish comes up in conversation. It can often come about by way of someone expressing concern about another person's situation (gossip this may be or not). A person might say something fairly dismissive of the person themselves and if you, say, suggest that we also may have similar character flaws and hint that this should give us pause the reply may come forth, "We all have problems."
What it means is "I'm not as bad as the person I'm not caring about." I may have problems but it's more fun to talk about the problems that other person has. That other person has a poor work ethic or has unrealistic standards in the opposite sex or is too fearful. Suppose I am bad at founding businesses that last longer than a couple of years because the basis of my business model needs improving? Suppose I lack empathy for others because I have become too cagey due to feeling used by other people? Suppose I think, mistakenly, that if I just avoid trusting people that people will be less likely to hurt me? All of those are significant, even spectacular problems, and yet I could dismiss all of that by saying "We all have problems." It's a brilliant conversational flourish. I'm not perfect ... but at least I'm better than you or that other person I was possibly just talking about. It is the would-be conversational panacea that accomplishes no healing. It speaks of peace even though there is still war.
The wisdom in Jesus' rebuke to Judas was not in saying "The poor you will always have with you." That by itself would merely be saying, "We all have problems". Jesus went further and said, "But you will not always have me." Now Jesus' observation that there will always be those who are poor IS wise but the crux of Jesus' wisdom in correcting those who looked down on the woman lay in going beyond observing what was obvious. Jesus was killed for telling people they had problems who thought they were the solution to the problems of other people. Jesus was killed by those who believed that they had in themselves the solution to their own problems, and not only those but the problems of the world. They had that solution in the form of what they believed was given to them. It was not, however, merely given to them but also, through Christ, to those whom they thought were not worthy of the gift through a means they considered unworthy of the gift.
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