On 28 January 1919, Max Weber gave his lecture Politik als Beruf, Politics as a Vocation, in Munich. In it he described the true civil servant. The official should not engage in politics. He should administer, and above all he should be impartial. Sine ira et studio, „ohne Zorn und Eingenommenheit“ soll er seines Amtes walten. He should carry out his office without anger and without bias. The Latin phrase comes from the opening of the Annals of Tacitus. Weber then named what belongs to the politician instead: Parteinahme, Kampf, Leidenschaft. Taking sides, struggle, passion.
Make the Opponent Angry
Around 1830, Arthur Schopenhauer began a manuscript on the tricks people use to win an argument. It was published after his death, in 1864, and is known as Eristische Dialektik or Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, The Art of Being Right. Trick number 8 reads: Den Gegner zum Zorn reizen: denn im Zorn ist er außer Stand, richtig zu urteilen und seinen Vorteil wahrzunehmen. Make your opponent angry, because in anger he cannot judge correctly or protect his own interests. Schopenhauer explains how it is done. Man bringt ihn in Zorn dadurch, daß man unverhohlen ihm Unrecht tut und schikaniert und überhaupt unverschämt ist. You treat him unfairly in the open, you harass him, and you are generally insolent. Trick number 27 also uses anger. If the opponent suddenly becomes angry at an argument, press that argument hard. The anger suggests that you have touched the weak side of his thinking.
Rhetoric Deserves No Respect
In 1790, Immanuel Kant published the Kritik der Urteilskraft, the Critique of Judgment. In section 53 he ranks the arts, and he separates two things. Speaking well and beautifully belongs to the fine arts. The art of the orator, ars oratoria, does not. Kant defines it as the art of using people’s weaknesses for one’s own purposes, even when those purposes are well meant or really good. Rednerkunst … ist … gar keiner Achtung würdig. It deserves no respect at all. Kant explains why. Such an art moves people to a judgment in important matters als Maschinen, as machines, and it takes away their freedom. He wrote that reading the best speech of a Roman orator, a member of parliament or a preacher was always mixed for him with an unpleasant feeling of disapproval of a deceitful art.
The Compass Needle in the Storm
Carl von Clausewitz’s Vom Kriege, On War, was published after his death, from 1832 to 1834. In the chapter on military genius he defines a strong mind. Ein starkes Gemüt ist nicht ein solches, welches bloß starker Regungen fähig ist, sondern dasjenige, welches bei den stärksten Regungen im Gleichgewicht bleibt. A strong mind is not one that is merely capable of strong emotions. It is one that stays in balance during the strongest emotions. Clausewitz gives an image for it. Despite the storms in the chest, insight and conviction keep their free movement, like the needle of a compass on a ship in a storm. He calls the power behind it Selbstbeherrschung, self-control. It is the power to submit to reason even in moments of the most violent emotion.
That cannot be calculated
That cannot be calculated. A German objection to a proposal, and it is a refusal rather than a complaint. What is being said is that the thing cannot be priced, and therefore cannot be undertaken.
Own-costs
Own-costs. The German term for what a thing costs the producer before any margin, and it appears in ordinary commercial speech as well as in accounting.
Zu Selbstkosten abgeben — to hand something over at own-cost — is a specific and meaningful statement in German business. It names an exact point on a scale everyone is assumed to know exists.
Under the line
Under the line. The German for the net result, and the line in question is the one drawn across a column of figures before the total is written beneath it. The phrase assumes a column exists.
Sighted over the thumb
Sighted over the thumb. The German for a rough estimate, from the surveyor’s trick of gauging distance by holding up a thumb. It is always flagged, and flagging it is the point — the speaker is marking the number as not properly derived before anyone else can.
The milkmaid’s arithmetic
Milkmaid’s arithmetic. The German term for a calculation that looks right and has left something out — from the fable of the milkmaid who counts the profits from her pail before dropping it.
It is a serious accusation in a German commercial discussion. The charge is not that the conclusion is wrong but that the working was.
It calculates itself
That calculates itself. The German way of saying something makes economic sense, and the verb is reflexive — the figures do the work, not the person arguing for them.