Looking for an expression or a phrase for a comforting or useful illusion or simulacrum. Something that is widely held, yet seldom scrutinized. Something so common it defies scrutiny. Something workable, but based on a premise with minor flaws that impede progress. A concept, that when vocalized, would have us nodding our heads. Perhaps useful because of it provides a quick or easy perspective which is successful.
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2"based on a premise with minor flaws that impede progress" wouldn't these flaws invite scrutiny?– KillingTimeCommented Oct 29, 2020 at 6:16
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Excellent observation which stabs to the heart of the matter. Widespread acceptance seems to have anesthetized the community.– dantopaCommented Oct 29, 2020 at 18:08
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1Please give us a sample sentence with a blank space _______ where the word would go. For example I could guess platitude or fool's paradise, but without a sentence to put it in, I don't know if it would fit. There are loads of possibilities.– chasly - supports MonicaCommented Nov 1, 2020 at 22:05
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3Does this answer your question? What is a word or phrase for a false belief or opinion on something people hold true and repeat because they have heard it repeated so many times?– Edwin AshworthCommented Jan 26, 2022 at 12:46
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1Is the focus here that the belief is commonly held and unquestioned, or that it is comforting / useful but known to be an illusion? Both? The proposed duplicate only covers the first.– jimm101Commented Mar 10, 2022 at 17:36
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4 Answers
A security blanket, as used by Linus in the Peanuts comic strip. All of the Peanuts characters are “positive”, so the term is more whimsical than hurtful.
https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Linus%27_security_blanket
This term could be used in a context like the following:
“Let’s start out with X as a kind of security blanket...”.
answered Oct 29, 2020 at 19:29
Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_
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Additional to Cascabel’s answer:
Proverb a brief popular epigram.
Adage a saying, often in metaphorical form, that typically embodies a common observation.
Saw - Maxim or proverb.
Etc....
All of these convey a sense of “universal truth” but are often at their core little more than hot air.
For example: You break up with a significant other and someone tells you:
It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
On the surface, this sounds like a universally true statement. Yet, as it does nothing to salve the pain you’re feeling, its “universal truth” is suspect.
façon de parler (n.)
A turn of phrase or rhetorical formula, especially one that ought not to be taken literally, but rather as employed for convenience of expression only. Wiktionary
A way or manner of speaking; a mere phrase or formula.
S. H. Hodgson Let. 8 Apr. in R. B. Perry Thought & Char. W. James (1935) I. 642 What is ‘the mind’?.. I suspect it is a mere façon de parler..which has a basis neither in psychological construction nor in philosophical analysis.
1907 W. De Morgan Alice-for-Short xlii. 439 Which was palpably a lie, taken literally; but was a façon-de-parler that passed muster, taken leniently. OED
Leibniz was well aware of the problems that this raised. His reaction was to urge us not to take talk of infinitesimal quantities literally. We could think of it as just a façon de parler, or as a 'useful fiction', to be justified by appeal to its enormous utility. A. W. Moore; The Infinite (2018)
Let us distinguish in mental phenomena a virtual part implemented by neurophysiological processes and a fictitious part not implemented at all, that is an illusion (or an idealization, or a mere façon de parler) whose introduction in our language sometimes may be quite useful but that strictly speaking does not exist. Oscar Vilarroya et al.; Social Brain Matters (2007)
There are no discrete unities identical to themselves and different from others. Distinguishing between natural kinds is merely façon de parler, referring only to a certain way of perceiving reality. Robert Spaemann; Essays in Anthropology (2010)
On the other hand, I do not know of any significant study of postmodernism that sees it object as a "reality" that is out there, to be discovered and mapped. What may appear as a result of the mimetic illusion is almost always a mere façon de parler, which is based on certain mimetic metaphors (the mind as a mirror, the mirror of nature, etc.) built into our language. M. Calinescu in M. Calinescu and D. Fokkema (eds.); Exploring Postmodernism (1987)
When he says " paranoid streak", he does not really mean the term" paranoid" to be taken seriously—it is just a facon de parler. Stephen Toulmin; The Return to Cosmology (1985)
