A person who does not develop is degrading. Impossible to stand still. You can move either forward or backward. So say psychologists.
What is degrading? This verb comes from a noun meaning a process of deterioration. Degradation - decline, loss, destruction. Does this word have other meanings?
In order to understand what is “degrading”, it is worth imagining the following picture. A man rides on a train, but decides to get off at one of the stations before the final destination of the journey is reached. The traveler leaves for the waiting room. His train, meanwhile, is moving farther and farther away from him. And the distance between the person and the goal of his path is becoming greater. A train is a life that, as you know, does not stand still.
The word “degrade” is quite common in oral and written language. In most cases, in relation to a person whose intellectual development is moving in the opposite direction.
To the question of what is “degrading”, different answers are given in certain areas of human activity. The word is found in chemical, biological, geological terminology. But at the same time, there is an answer to the question of what is “degrading”, which is always true, regardless of the context in which the word occurs. Namely, "regress." Degradation is the opposite of the word progress.
Before giving examples of the use of the verb, the meaning of which is discussed in this article, it is worth saying a few words about its origin.
Etymology
This word appeared in Russian in the Petrine era. In the eighteenth century, what it means to “degrade” was well known to unlucky statesmen who, due to their crimes, were deprived of their ranks and ranks. In the Russian language, this word came from Polish and meant "to demolish." And how it turned out there is unknown. Because initially “degradation” is a Latin word.
From a dead language, it, like many others, migrated to other languages of the Romanesque group. Hence the erroneous opinion that "degradation" is a French borrowing. But what did this word mean in Latin? In what cases the Romans used it, perhaps not every historian or philologist knows it. But in order to determine what it means to “degrade” in the modern sense, it is worth parsing the word degradacja. The prefix de is "down", gradacja can be translated as "steps" or "step". By the way, in modern Russian there are a lot of foreign borrowings starting with “de”. All of them are of Latin origin.
In the 20th century, the word "degradation" acquired a new meaning. Namely: deterioration, destruction, decline, loss of any qualities.
Personality degradation
Often this word is used when it comes to alcohol addiction. In this case, how to understand "degrade"? The psyche of a person suffering from addiction, whether alcoholic or narcotic, undergoes a process of destruction. Memory worsens, intelligence decreases.
In addition, a person who regularly drinks alcohol loses the ability to evaluate himself objectively. Acts committed in alcoholic intoxication, no matter how unsightly they were, do not cause pain of conscience, awkwardness. That is, there is deviant behavior. In social terms, a person suffering from alcohol dependence is extremely indifferent. The presence of all these symptoms indicates degradation of the person.
In soil science
As already mentioned, the word "degradation" is found in various terminologies. So, it is used when it comes to the process of changing the composition and quality of the soil. But you can not say "the soil is degrading." In this case, the use of phrases from a noun and a verb is appropriate. For example: " Soil degradation occurs as a result of natural phenomena."
In biology
The same can be said about the use of the phrase "degradation of fatty acids." This term means one of the stages of cellular respiration. It would be wrong to say "fatty acids degrade, " just as the phrase is incorrectly worded: "When proteins cease to be necessary, proteins degrade ." In both the first and second cases, it is appropriate to use the noun and the verb "to be exposed."
Thus, the verb "to degrade" is used only in relation to a person who does not develop culturally, intellectually and socially.