Worst catchphrase: "Everything happens for a reason."

[DerekG]

Last week, a friend of mine tried to bring some meaning to the Iraq war, claiming that the devastation (the growing number of orphans, scorched children, bombed out water-treatment plants, a looming theocracy etc...) will be "all for the best", for it will hasten the fall of the American Empire.

I balked, for I recall reading the same words in books about the Vietnam War--somehow, the realization of the needless war that claimed 3 million human beings in Indochina was to usher in a more humane American foreign policy.

That didn't happen, did it?

Or how about World War II, which supposedly ended anti-Semitism and extinguished fascism from the Earth? The latter claim is nonsense (we kinda picked up where the Third Reich left off) and the former really wasn't worth the cost of 50 million dead.

"Everything happens for a reason" is the worst kind of sentimentality--a phrase usually uttered by the prosperous.

I am not a nihilist; as my avatar indicates, I am a religious person. But I readily admit that the world can be a pretty horrifying place, where many people suffer and die for no damn reason.

[unblock]

1. "everything happens for a reason" == "shut up"

it's used as a debate killer. there's no room to argue with that attitude. it's basically used to say, "i don't care what your view or your logic is; i'm right, but i can't defend it, so just shut up, because i'm not going to listen to you."

[meegbear]

2. My response is ...

"So my father died of cancer because ....". Haven't been given a reason yet.

[ihaveaquestion]

3. I agree

"Everything happens for a reason" is the worst kind of sentimentality--a phrase usually uttered by the prosperous.

But not with the bit about folks who are "prosperous" being the ones who use this. It may be true that some prosperous folks use this to justify their actions/thoughts. My observation is that many folks use this to make them feel that something or someone is really in control even if it's not them. It's comforting, more so than thinking that things really aren't in anyone's control.

[DerekG]

5. Not in my experience

The most impoverished and hopeless I've come across have surrendered to a kind of nihilism; it is the prosperous, usually white and college educated, who use this inane phase. It's like a person who claims that a bout with cancer turned him into a better person, not realizing that he would not have lived had he not had health insurance. They have escape routes and back-ups. Ergo, their life takes the form of a vision quest.

Suffering does not always lead to growth; for some, it cripples and destroys the spirit.

[zeemike]

4. But everything does happen for a reason

But the things that happens whether it is good or evil, positive or negative, painful or pleasurable happens for reasons that are good or evil positive or negative...
And the saying itself is used for a reason that can be positive or negative. It can be used as a topic killer or as a way to examine the cause of destruction and pain.
A truth is not a lie just because it is used to justify one.