First-World Problems...

I have been reliably informed by The Guardian, the woke paper of record, Why the phrase 'first world problem' is condescending to everyone.

Apparently the phrase "third-world" is insulting and sexist and racist and causes terrible angst among a certain class of people. You know...the people who are profound assholes who would rather tell us what to do than actually do anything of value.

And "first world" is even worse!

To pre-emptively concede that my problem is just a first world one is to ostentatiously check my privilege before anyone else tells me to do so. At the same time, I remind myself and everyone in earshot that we are indeed living in the “first world”. So it is also a humblebrag.

Such privilege-checking becomes a more violent intervention when demanded by someone else. If, after listening to your pathetic account of how your Uber cab took a whole 10 minutes to arrive, I respond “first world problem”, then I am aggressively staking out the moral high ground and portraying myself (almost certainly dishonestly) as someone who only ever worries about the plight of starving children. Naturally, our powers of sympathy are limited and we all conduct psychic triage on the sufferings of others. But when “first world problem” is just a mealy mouthed way of saying “shut up”, it sounds distinctly compassion-free.

PS. I know all of you were worried about my door thumb latch. Rest assured...all is well. I contacted the manufacturer (Baldwin), and they guarantee their products unconditionally. They sent me a rebuild kit, which works fine! Although the instructions were awful beyond compare. Tiny little images that seemed to be photos of photos of photos. And steps that didn't apply to my style of lock, but there was no indication of that. So it was a fun 45 minutes, accompanied by much cursing.

posted by CBD at 02:00 PM

| Access Comments