‘Third World’ was born as anti-colonial solidarity and became Western condescension. Time to retire it.

If you’re still using “Third World” to describe countries in 2026, one of two things is true. You don’t know the history of the phrase. Or you do, and you’re comfortable with the hierarchy it carries. Neither is a good look. This isn’t political correctness. It’s accuracy. The term is factually obsolete, analytically useless, and encodes a set of assumptions […]