this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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Meet the people where they are - modernize the language in theory. No one uses booze waz je in normal speak. Just say rich fucks. No one uses prole la terry at. Use commoners or the rest of us besides the rich fucks. It's been over 100 years since Marx and the egalitarian language of the late victorian era where theory was written. Things have changed, though the base ideas are similar. Language has changed. Terminology has changed.
You got to make it bite sized and simple.
Modern contradictions of crap-it-all-ism is incompatable with a sustainable and peaceful society.
rich fucks is wrong, it's business owners. commoners is also wrong, it's working class, it's perfectly legible, if diluted via identity signaling term, pensioners are not working class, pickup owning, is not, in itself, working class.
and people do say bougie to describe extravagant spending
Vulgarization of Marxist theory robs it of its revolutionary edge and turns proletarian theory into petty bourgeois radicalism
i do think there is something to be said about not banging on about contradictions, it's dialectical, negations of negations, you have to be able to explain theory in normal language, but like you have to understand something to simplify it.
There's a vast difference between doing what Moissaye Olgin and Gus Hall did in their times with colloquializing Marxist theory into shop floor talk and and doing the capitalists work of robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance as Lenin describes in the very first paragraph of his titular work "State and Revolution"
Proletariat and bourgeoisie are not big words
They are for Amerikkkan smoothbrain types. What I try to do when engaging in theory talk is use "owner class" or "capitalists", and "workers" etc, then later I will drop a "bourgeoisie" or "proletariat" to introduce these words.
Oh yeah big brain lady?! Then how come I have an advanced degree and still can't spell that silly French b-word?
Gotta get with the skibbity times fam frfr. 67
They're big words to a poorly educated person, and at least the US population mostly consists of poorly educated people.
Use those words to a working class USian and they will accuse you of being a snobby college liberal and ignore everything else you say.
I live in Ireland
Noted, I can't speak to the population from your country except that you probably couldn't do worse than the US.
since OP's friend said "posh" we're probably not talking about an american, but 4 syllables is big
Do USAians not say 'posh'? What do y'all say instead?
i don't think we have a 1:1 equivalent because we didn't develop the same social class structure. i'd just directly say "fancy" or "upper class" or "rich" etc depending on what aspect was most relevant.
Naruhodo. Ty for explanation
For modern westerners they are and completely foreign to their vocabulary. No one says these words in modern language. They aren't raised on those words. You might as well be speaking in sandscript as people are turned off by them as soon as you say them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y8NYDZ8RuQ
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
My zoomer younger sister calls stuff "bougie"
Yeah but bougie can mean spending an entire paycheck on a gucci belt or a hotel room. Most of the time when that term is used it's by someone with poor spending habits trying to appear bougie
Yeah I think that's become a relatively common phrase the last few years, but I'm willing to bet the majority of people don't know it's origin as a contraction of bourgeoise
And its counterpart 'bolshy' (meaning brash, strident but also used to mean callous, overbearing) from Bolsheviks