• spujb@lemmy.cafe
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    15 hours ago

    Social murder (German: sozialer Mord) is a concept used to describe an unnatural death that is believed to occur due to social, political, or economic oppression, instead of direct violence. Originally coined in 1845 by German philosopher Friedrich Engels, it has since been used by left-wing politicians, journalists and activists to describe deaths they attribute to larger social forces.

    • germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      12 hours ago

      Lowkey hilarious that the English Wikipedia cites the original German name of this concept but there isn’t even a German page for it

      • festnt
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        7 hours ago

        i saw this comment, checked wikipedia, and yeah, there isnt

        so i thought to myself: “i could translate the english version to german!”

        then i remembered i don’t speak german

      • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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        12 hours ago

        hmmm interesting observation! why do you think that is? /gen

        my guess is maybe the leftists who adopted the term from Engels are primarily english speakers (could be wrong)

        • fallingcats@discuss.tchncs.de
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          9 hours ago

          It could be that, but probably it’s mostly related to the fact that German Wikipedia, while big, doesn’t match the English one in size. Some more obscure topics just aren’t on there for no reason other than that it just didn’t happen.