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A comment on The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899). Parent comment

Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by TuringTest on Thursday May 04, 2017 @05:22AM (#14263607)
The original meaning of "barbarian" was akin to "not Roman" or "foreigner" (more precisely, someone not belonging to any of the classic civilizations).

Akin to "villanus" (someone living in a village), it took a derogatory tone later, as someone "uncivilized", but that was not part of its literal meaning.

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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by steaktartaar_ on Thursday May 04, 2017 @05:37AM (#14263654)
Greek, in fact. Barbarian has it's roots in βάρβαρος, an ancient Greek onomatopoeic for "people who go bar bar bar", or people who don't speak Greek.
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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by hythloday on Thursday May 04, 2017 @07:02AM (#14263935)
Due to phonetic shifts in the programming language community, we now say that barbarians are people who say "var var var".
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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by vixen99 on Thursday May 04, 2017 @09:02AM (#14264471)
'has its roots'
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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by mirimir on Thursday May 04, 2017 @05:56AM (#14263719)
OK, foreigner. But foreigner to what?

I think that he styles everyone except working-class geeks as barbarians.

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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by TuringTest on Thursday May 04, 2017 @06:11AM (#14263776)
Given the context and epoch of the book, I'd guess "barbarian" refers to non-Western, non-industrial societies.

BTW, there's a Wikipedia article about the book. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas...

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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by mirimir on Thursday May 04, 2017 @09:54PM (#14270547)
Yes, pre-industrial.

But as far as I can tell, so far, he doesn't clearly define the term in the book.

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