I live in Austria and noticed recently, due to my boss and colleagues using it, that the word “Prolet” is being used as a swear word for basically uncultured people in german. Before reading theory, I wasn’t aware of the link to marxism.
Now, I wanted to ask if any of you have heard the word being used in the same way in your languages. I’m wondering if it’s used that way only in german. Do you think this might be a way to make people instinctively steer away from communism? Feels like a way to degrade the working class.
no, I’ve never heard anyone even use the word proletariat/prole in English outside of discussions about marxism
Same, the only time I’ve ever heard the world before being radicalized was
cw: extreme cringe
George Orwell. Kill me now.
I’ve heard it in historical contexts
Seems to be a german thing. I guess in english “White Trash” is kind of comparable. But Prolet has its pejorative meaning beyond skin colour.
It is definitely beeing used to degrade the working class. The german wikipedia article describes it well.
Oh, thank you for the article! I wonder why this would be only happening in the german language though… I’m hoping as more and more ppl will become communists, the word might lose its negative conotation, but that’s just hoping.
I come from a relatively wealthy background in México and ive definitely heard it used as an insult by the rich. Also its very common to hear “corriente” (common) as an insult by the rich too.
Bruh, “commoner” certainly wins the price in alienating most of a country’s populace. There’s many words in german that describe the poorer masses in a degrading way. I’m sure the rich use those casually, but I personally only heard them being used in memes. I guess the difference here is that ‘Prolet’ is being used by working class ppl to insult other workers who they deem to be ‘trashy human beings’.
Our boggies are so malinchistas (hate our people and themselves) that they call mexican music as “musica corriente” in a degrading way lmao.
I’ve heard corriente in common media before and we do have it used sometimes in English (but mainly satirically) but I have certainly heard it in Mexican media in the past a number of times. It always seemed so so rude to me
Our media is beyond awful, if you want to have a look at what our rich guys opinions look at Ricardo Salinas Pliego Twitter, one of the richest guys here owner of TV Azteca (one of the main media channels, of course privatized after mexico defaulted in the 80s/90s). He has to be one of the most publicly hateful guys on earth, and as you may know media reflects the views of their owners.
no, but marxists with right wing deviance may use lupem as an insult, meaning you are to poor and uneducated to understand this refined theory
did you mean lumpen?
yes, thank you for the correction, comrade.
Yeah, in English some people say pleb like plebeian which obviously is a similar connotation and I would say that we have that which is similar
