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.
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.