Politically impossible

The term " politically impossible " is a phrase that came up in the 1950s.

The politically impossible according to Helmut Schoeck

In 1957 , Helmut Schoeck made the phenomenon the subject of scientific research for the first time . In 1959 he published his work What does politically impossible?

An action can be in the realm of the impossible because economic, psychological, geographical or military factors preclude it. The phrase of a politically impossible act, legislation or state measure, on the contrary, refers to acts of which the persons legitimized and often even obliged to act know exactly that they would be morally, economically, safety or health politically appropriate, but at the same time know or suspect that the political opponent will exaggerate such an act to the result of a crime. So when politicians feel incapable of acting because the propaganda vulnerability associated with the act could increase the competitor's chances in the next election, they talk about the political impossible. The clouding of the public debate through the frivolous use of the phrase of the politically impossible works, according to Helmut Schoeck, beyond the individual party. These clichés not only lead to the abdication of the ethicists of responsibility before the ethicists of convictions , but also to the paralysis of political life. Ever since this phrase became popular, politicians have tended to give the electorate the impression that there are actions that, regardless of their reasonableness and desirability, are simply not considered because they are “politically impossible” for reasons that are often psychologically and legally unsound “Be. This leads to a flattening and belittling, to the silence of fundamental questions.

source

• Helmut Schoeck : The right to inequality, 3rd expanded new edition. Munich, p. 31f

literature

• Helmut Schoeck: What does politically impossible mean? Zurich 1959