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The term George RR Martin uses in A Song of Ice and Fire is the "smallfolk." As in, these are the people whose lives are too small to influence much of anything. I'm pretty sure he was influenced by the Durants; they harp again and again how for most of the population, history is something that happens to other people or, when it happens to you, it's a force akin to a tornado or an earthquake. I don't think it's particularly democratic to look out across the planet and go "yeah nearly all of these people don't matter in the grand scheme of things" but boy howdy am I starting to lose patience with the smallfolk.