Really? I thought that third group were the non aligned nations.
How does that differ from what I said?
You said, “The Third World was everywhere else, the places where the US and USSR were competing to exert their influence.” I always understood Third World nations to mean developing ones
Wow! It’s been so long since I’ve seen a “The Master Speaks” cite! I almost forgot why I originally found the dope!
Pretty much. As per Cecil’s article, in the Cold War, much of the developed world was split between the capitalist and communist developed nations, with the developing nations consisting of the “third world”.
Were there any developed countries that weren’t allied with either the West or the Soviet Block?
I suppose that Switzerland would technically be “third world”…
Does the master still speak? I haven’t read a column in for ever.
Well, don’t look into it, but I heard his consciousness was uploaded to AWS and he speaks via high speed fiber to his robotic assistant, Discobot, who does his earthly bidding.
Cecil passed away a while back. The article in the link was dated 1983.
The last “article” was 2 years ago.
Cecil cannot die. Only the mortals who temporarily host his immortal essence.
It was before my time.
South Africa? The Trump administration seems happy to accept immigrants from there, as long as they meet certain “criteria”…
White-ever could that be?
Yes. That worked out so well for Benjamin Schoonwinkel (gift link, should work for all).
I believe France could have been considered a Third World Country.
France was absolutely 1st World once postwar recovery got going. They never left NATO , just asserted independent command authority.
The numbered “Worlds” did not map solely to Western Ally/Soviet Bloc/Nonaligned. Just as if not more important was Market-economy Industrialized vs. Communist Industrialized vs. “Underdeveloped”. Prosperous democratic neutrals like Switzerland were First World.
But the thing in Miller’s context really is that in common Western usage the phrase “Third World” quickly evolved into the “R-word” of geopolitics and, as mentioned earlier, employed as the “polite” euphemistic way to refer to what a later President would say “s—-thole countries” but still communicating you meant poor, dirty,“backward” places.