Having to live on the streets is something degrading.
Degrading is something that denigrates . The etymological origin of denigrate takes us to the Latin denigrāre , which means “to put black” or “to stain.” The action of denigration, therefore, consists of forming a (symbolic) stain on someone's fame , reputation or opinion .
What is degrading is something that tarnishes, insults, offends, offends or outrages . It may be an effect produced by someone external or the consequence of an erroneous or unfortunate action by the person themselves.
For example: “The image of drunk young people on the street is degrading to the city” , “The owner of the company had a degrading attitude towards his employees” , “It is degrading that some people have to rummage through the garbage in search of food” .
Examples of use of the degrading term
Denigration is often associated with humiliation . If a boss accuses an employee of theft and forces him to undress in front of all his colleagues so that he can prove that he has not taken anything that does not belong to him, it could be said that he is promoting degrading treatment of the worker.
Similarly, if a young baby binge-drinks and becomes alcoholic, she is likely to engage in degrading behaviors that, in a state of sobriety, she would never engage in. Urinating in public and insulting those who approach her are acts that denigrate her condition and that she herself carries out without realizing it due to the unconsciousness that alcohol has produced.
It is also possible to link what is degrading to discrimination . If in a town people who do not profess the majority religion are forced to wear a yellow hat so that everyone can recognize them, this will be a degrading attitude.
What is degrading can be associated with humiliation.
Attacks on a community or social group
In the same way, we have to explain that throughout history there have been denigrating attitudes or terms that one group or group has carried out against another. A good example of this is that Jews for centuries have been outraged with all kinds of insults and were even the target of the Nazis, who killed, imprisoned and carried out a multitude of human experiments on them in the extermination camps.
Women, homosexuals or black men and women, we can establish that they are among the population groups that have been most seen, since time immemorial, as the center of denigrating actions and opinions. Unfortunately, and although progress has been made in many aspects, even today they have to face situations in which they are the object of ridicule, ridicule, contempt...
Degrading advertising
In addition to all of the above, we would have to emphasize that there is also what is known as degrading advertising. This is a term that is used to refer to any advertisement that, due to the images or slogans it uses, offends or aggravates certain social groups.
Thus, for example, on more than one occasion society has risen up against advertising that denigrated women due to the sexist attitudes it posed and that showed her as a human being incapable of doing anything more than domestic tasks, in need of a man. to protect him or with questionable intellectual capacity.