Killer argument

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As killer argument or killer phrase refers colloquial and press linguistically a dummy argument , that instead of a Argumentum ad veritatem is submitted to the attention of the opponent or discussion of the audience from the core of the thread to a irrelevant secondary aspect deflect. It appears in the guise of the apodictic statement that what the opponent in the discussion alleged or demanded is completely out of the question.

Both expressions - "killer argument" and "killer phrase" - have been popular in German since around 1980.

In argumentation theory and rhetoric we speak in the same case by " Red Herring (" or "relevance fallacies" English. Fallacies of relevance , relevance fallacies ). The “ empty phrase ” that often characterizes a “homicide argument” (e.g. “We have never done it like this before”) is usually an argumentum ad rem (here: Argumentum ad antiquitatem ).

Concept history

Management theory

The term killer phrase goes back to the management theorist Charles Clark , who first used it in 1958. Clark was interested in the brainstorming idea generation technique invented by Alex F. Osborn in 1939 , which Clark sought to develop further. In this context, he called killer phrases those contributions that do not fuel the creativity of the participants in a brainstorming session, but rather stifle it. Examples:

  • "We have always done that."
  • "We have never done that before."
  • "It will not work"
  • "We don't have enough time ..."
  • "We don't have enough manpower ..."
  • "We don't have enough money ..."
  • "We have already tried that ..."
  • "We are not yet prepared for that ..."
  • "Sounds good in theory, but in practice ..."
  • "Too academic ..."
  • "What will the customers think?"
  • "If the idea were good, someone else would have done it beforehand ..."
  • "Too modern ..."
  • "Too old-fashioned ..."
  • "Let's talk about it another time ..."
  • "I don't understand your problem ..."
  • "We are too small for that ..."
  • "We are too big for that ..."
  • "We have too many projects at the moment ..."
  • "Let's do a market study first ..."

political science

A little later than the term killer phrase , a term for a very similar thing emerged in political science , again in English : In his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism , the American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton wrote of “thought-terminating clichés "(English for" thought-ending clichés "). This book was about the peculiar structure of the language created by the Chinese Communist Party , in which Lifton identified eight totalitarian issues, including the thought-terminating cliché , which he called “ the start and finish of any ideological analysis ). As examples he named u. a. Keywords like “progress”, “liberation”, “proletarian”, “bourgeois”, “exploiting classes”, “capitalist”, “imperialist”.

The terms "killing argument" and "killer phrase" in German

The word “killings argument” has been in German since at least 1981, when popular magazines such as Der Spiegel and Bunte contributed to its distribution. Like the English equivalent of thought-terminating cliché , this term was also initially applied primarily to examples from politics. However, the application began to expand as early as the late 1990s. The term no longer only appeared in connection with political issues, but increasingly referred to arguments ad rem from all possible areas of life, including management theory and education.

The German word “Totschlagargument” is mostly translated into English today as “knockout argument”, although the expression, which has been widespread in English since the late 19th century, originally referred to less a manipulative than an extremely powerful argument that a speaker saves for the end .

The word “killer phrase” has been in German since at least 1982, with the Clark reception at the beginning and killer phrases being defined as “pseudo arguments and phrases”. The context of Clark's brainstorming was abandoned very early on, however, and the term "killer phrase" was used to denote - in general - ruthless, tactical arguments aimed solely at winning, with the result that a difference in meaning between "killer argument" and "killer phrase" can hardly be recognized in German today.

In the mid-1980s, the term TINA principle (for There Is No Alternative , “there is no alternative”) was also used in German. While "killer arguments" and "killer phrases" denote such arguments ad rem with which the undesirable should be branded as indisputable, the "TINA principle" is, conversely, about highlighting something desirable as beyond criticism. Here, too, it is a question of non-technical language usage and in the matter mostly arguments ad rem . It became known in Germany through the expression “no alternative” used by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The three sentences "We have always done it this way", "We have never done it this way" and "Anyone can come" are colloquially referred to in German as the "official three-sentence".

See also

literature

Management theoretical literature

  • Charles Hutchison Clark : Brainstorming. Methods of collaboration and brainstorming . Verlag Moderne Industrie, 1973.

Non-fiction

  • Antonia Cicero, Julia Kuderna: Clever answers to stupid sayings. Artfully countering killer phrases; Powertalking in action . Paderborn, 2001, ISBN 3-87387-455-5 .
  • Meike Müller: Killer phrases ... and how you counter skillfully . Eichborn publishing house, Frankfurt / Main 2003, ISBN 3-8218-5564-9 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Quadbeck-Seeger , Harald Böck: That has never worked. The best killer phrases from A for "But" to Z for "Target group" . Weinheim, 2005, ISBN 3-527-50197-5 .
  • Hubert Schleichert : How to discuss with fundamentalists without losing your mind. Guide to subversive thinking . 4th edition. Beck, 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-51124-0 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Homicide argument  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roman Leuthner: Manager jargon . Open Publishing, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-95912-035-7 , pp. 88 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ "Manslaughter argument", "Killer phrase" and "Killer argument" in the NGram Viewer. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Homicide argument. Retrieved July 26, 2020 .
  4. ^ Charles H. Clark: Brainstorming. The Dynamic New Way to Create Successful Ideas . Wilshire Book Company, Northern Hollywood 1958.
  5. ^ Charles H. Clark: Brainstorming. The Dynamics New Way to Create Successful Ideas. Retrieved July 26, 2020 .
  6. ^ Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism . Norton, New York 1961, ISBN 0-8078-4253-2 , pp. 429 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ "Homicide argument". Retrieved July 26, 2020 (from Google Books search).
  8. ↑ Jens Birkmeyer: Pictures of Terror . Springer, 1994, ISBN 978-3-8244-4162-4 , pp. 75 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ↑ Dagmar Günther: Alpine Quergang: cultural history of bourgeois alpinism (1870-1930) . Campus, Frankfurt, New York 1998, ISBN 3-593-36100-0 , pp. 179 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  10. ↑ Werner Pfeiffer, Enno Weiss: Lean Management: Basics of the management and organization of learning companies . 2nd Edition. Erich Schmidt, Berlin, ISBN 3-503-03678-4 , pp. 248 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  11. ^ Karl-Wilhelm Weeber: With Latin at the end ?: Tradition with perspectives . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-34003-6 , pp. 22 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ Editorials . In: the Medical Critic and Guide . tape 20 , no. 1 . New York January 1917, p. 6 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  13. ↑ Case study no. 10: "Brainstorming for ideas" . In: Jörg D. Thiede (ed.): Case study collection . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-05221-8 , pp. 145–160, here: p. 148 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  14. ^ Paul-Ludwig Völzing: Metacommunication and argumentation. Or: the art of finding a kite . In: Wolfgang Frier (Ed.): Pragmatics, Theory and Practice . Radopi, Amsterdam 1981, ISBN 90-6203-993-6 , pp. 237–275, here: p. 249 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  15. ↑ Astrid Séville: "There is no alternative": How the TINA principle weakens democracy , Deutschlandfunk Kultur, January 27, 2018
  16. ↑ How legitimate is the TINA principle? , koerber-stiftung.de
  17. ↑ Michael Richling: Ethics for non-specialists and young professionals 9-10: Completely worked out teaching units and directly applicable practical materials (9th and 10th grade) . Auer Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-403-07815-9 ( google.de [accessed on August 4, 2020]).