Annoying, Empty Phrases: "It's a Reflection of Our Times"

One phrase that has long annoyed me (yes, I know there are a lot of them) is "It's a reflection of our times"--or in regard to the past, "It's a reflection of its times."

The reason is that in saying that one does not say anything at all. After all, anything and everything can in some way be regarded as a reflection of its times--even in its ostentatiously rejecting some aspect of those times.

The real issue is what we are seeing reflected, and how, and why, and what they think of it. That is what they should be talking about.

But certain simpletons regard simply uttering the pretentious phrase as the speaking of something profound, and the speaker--apt to be such a simpleton themselves--preens as if they have just offered esoteric wisdom.

More irksome still is the phrase's so often being an uncritical and (ironically, given the inclusion of the term "the times") ahistorical celebration of the new, even where what is being reflected is so terrible that no right-thinking person should be able to regard it with equanimity.

And so once again: groan.