Forever yesterday
As living in the past or, as an adjective, forever yesterday's (derogatory) a man is called, clings to his old political opinions and recognizes no progress or recognize. The Duden describes a person from the past as "someone who is and remains backward in his views." The associated noun is Eternal Day .
Accordingly, the term is often used disparagingly as a political catchphrase . In the early 1930s, for example, the members of the National Socialist comradeships denounced the traditional student associations as “reactionary”, “stuffy” and “forever yesterday”.
Today, for example, supporters of National Socialism ( neo-Nazism ) or racism are dubbed as yesterday.
Word origin
The term comes from Friedrich von Schiller's tragedy Wallenstein's death : The military leader hesitates to defeat the emperor because he realizes:
“It is an invisible enemy whom I fear,
Who opposes me in the heart of man,
Through cowardly fear alone terrible to me.
What is vividly and powerfully proclaimed is not what
is dangerously terrible. It's the very
common thing , the eternal yesterday ,
whatever was and always comes back
And tomorrow is valid because it was valid today! "
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://de.thefreedictionary.com/ewiggestriger (last accessed on July 13, 2009).
- ↑ http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ewiggestriger (last accessed on October 26, 2011).
- ↑ The Uprising of the Eternal , Frank Wiebe, August 13, 2017, Handelsblatt, accessed February 21, 2018.