The label ‘Third World’ reversed meaning from revolutionary pride to derogation under globalization

Evidence

For the countries of the former Third World movement, globalization was the end of their attempt to catch up with the First World through intentional economic upgrading. Those words themselves, “Third World,” had been transformed (in English and French at least) from a thoroughly positive term signifying the subjects of history—the true revolutionaries who inspired the students on the streets in 1968—to objects of pity and derision. Meanwhile, far more post-communist citizens fell into “Third World” conditions than entered the First. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 119

Categorization

• DEFINE: Documents a concrete semantic inversion of the term ‘Third World’ over recent decades.
• CANDY: The reversal of ‘Third World’ from revolutionary self-designation to derision is a compact, shareable fact.
• XREF: connects to: The term Third World originally named military non-alignment, not geography or modes of production — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 564; The term ‘Third World’ fuses three distinct meaning-sets. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 81; Third Worldism functioned as an aggressive accusation of the capitalist system — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 395 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Third Worldism functioned as an aggressive accusation of the capitalist system #exemplifies (0.82) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 395
• The term ‘Third World’ fuses three distinct meaning-sets. #expands (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 81
• Perceived Third World radicalism mobilized support for counter-revolutionary economics #corroborates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1735
• The term Third World originally named military non-alignment, not geography or modes of production #expands (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 564
• The category ‘Third World’ has polemical but no theoretical status #qualifies (0.73) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 374
• A new post-1970s left intellectual combined Third World rhetoric with anticommunism and Nietzschean post-structuralism #complicates (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 791