I read this rant online that asserted that the term “first world problems” implied that people in so-called second or third world countries either didn’t know or didn’t care about certain (stupid) issues, which the writer said wasn’t at all true, and was patronizing to those people as stereotyping them as “backward” or all so poor that they couldn’t handle knowledge of anything more trivial than survival.
I could see the point, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure that the writer’s understanding of the term was the same as mine. But I also wasn’t sure I could explain my exact position.
Language is a device in which human beings give names to phenomena, in order to be able to talk about them comprehensibly. Humanity is divided into linguistic groups, and each such group coins words that are relevant to their own communication usage, with one expression often drawing upon another as the need arises for new things to talk about.
So, rich people who have flourished industrially and economically, looked around them and discovered that there were, roughly, three groups of nations which were characterized by elements that were central to the scope of the discussion. There was (1) the great capitalist powers of the world, who consolidated wealth on their own behalf. There was (2) the socialist sphere of nations, which developed modern cultures wqhile shunning capitalist enterprise. The remainder (3), were simply called “The Third World”, because they were not one of the first two already referenced as being germane to the terms of the conversation at hand.
Nobody said the Third World was stupid or evil or defective in any way. They just said they were outliers in the discussion about the dividing up of the industrialized accumulation of wealth.
Most any time I’ve seen the phrase used, it’s been lightly or in jest. Personally, I wouldn’t invest too much time analyzing it, as I understand the intention behind its usage (usually contextual).
Any experience or challenge is relative, and people all over the world have their unique and very real problems. I certainly won’t judge (maybe a little). In the times I’ve heard anyone participate in a legitimate discussion/analysis of those problems, the phrase was never used.
I didn’t read the article/rant you’re referring to, but if this is the authors real problem, well…
I would like to point out that First/Second/Third World are terms from the Cold War referring to NATO and Friends, Russia and Co, and neutral countries respectively. So the terms are a bit outdated, but if you want to be patronizing to Sweden or Russia, go right on ahead.
Although I think “First World Problem” is used in the context of “poor crappy countries are third world”, so a first world problem is a stupid problem that the third world doesn’t have because it’s trivial to them above survival, I’d say it’s not really patronizing, it’s more self deprecating.
This. “Third world” has now come to refer to countries where daily life incurs much greater hardships and risks than are likely to be encountered by the average American (life in the second world generally isn’t awesome these days either). The phrase “First-world problem” is not patronizing to residents of the second/third world; it’s patronizing to people who complain about experiencing first-world problems.
Example:
“My hand is too big to comfortably reach all the way to the bottom of the Pringles can.”
“That’s a first-world problem.”
I can’t see how characterizing that as a first-world problem is patronizing to second/third-worlders.
When I was studying development economics in Pakistan in the 1980s, First World was highly industrialized economies with market economies, Second World was highly industrialized “planned” economies, and the Third World was poor countries, regardless of economic system.
The edge cases were the oil rich countries and the Asian tigers, but the latter were pretty much in the First World club by the 1980s.
No one would consider Switzerland or Sweden part of the Third World, then or now.
The phrase “First World Problem” is not patronizing to people in Africa or South America, it’s patronizing to Americans with real difficulties. It’s a way of saying, “Quit whining and shut up about your problems, because other people in this world have REAL problems that make yours look like nothing.”
Look, I’m a fairly prosperous, fat and happy American. I know that my own concerns are insignificant compared to those of a Liberian woman with Ebola or a starving refugee in Somalia. But they’re my concerns, they’re real to me, and they’re important to me. And it’s both patronizing and rude to dismiss them because they’re not life and death matters.
“WIll I have enough money to send my kid to college” is a First World Problem.“Will I be able to pay for a new air conditioning system this year” is a First World Problem. They’re no less serious to me for all that. Telling me not to worry about them because at least I’m not dealing with typhoid or ethnic cleansing isn’t helpful.
The patronizing part is that it casts the Third Worlder in almost a “noble savage” light. Here’s a guy whose every thought is on survival and scraping out a living from the dirt while we obsess over our bourgeois trivialities.
In reality, some ox herder in Sudan feels the same annoyance as you do if he orders a meal and it comes out wrong or scratches his phone screen or whatever. Annoying shit is annoying shit the world over.
On the other hand, I was unaware that anyone was still saying “First World Problems”. I thought that died around the era of Gangnam Style.
I think a lot of you don’t know what the word “patronizing” means. In particular, the definition “to adopt an air of condescension toward…” is applicable here.
Most if not all of the comments about “first-world problems” do indeed adopt an air of condescension towards those who do not have the luxury of experiencing those problems.
How often do you suppose those sorts of things happen to an ox herder in the Sudan? How many Sudanese ox herders do you suppose even own smartphones, let alone scratch them? I won’t dare to suggest the number is zero, but I’ll wager the percentage is so vanishingly small that you’d spend a long time looking for one who has experienced those problems.
The point of describing annoying shit as a first-world problem is not that a resident of the third-world wouldn’t experience it as annoying shit; it’s that the third-worlder rarely even experiences it - and among those that do, they generally have much more pressing concerns.
I see the use of the phrase “first-world problem” as a reminder that in the cosmic spectrum of Shit That Could Happen To Us, we in the first world have got it pretty damn good. It’s a slap in the face that reminds you to be grateful for the fact that Boko Haram won’t be coming for your daughters tonight, and you won’t have to worry about IEDs during your commute to your office job tomorrow morning.
But I generally think when we use the term “first world problems”, it’s usually to describe something that’s relatively inconsequential to begin with. Like having to walk an extra 2 blocks because your favorite Starbucks is out of those breakfast sandwiches.
Teju Cole may be the writer mentioned in the OP, who tweetedabout the problems of this expression:
[QUOTE=Teju Cole]
I don’t like this expression “First World problems.” It is false and it is condescending. Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn’t disappear just because you’re black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here’s a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.
One event that illustrated the gap between the Africa of conjecture and the real Africa was the BlackBerry outage of a few weeks ago. Who would have thought Research In Motion’s technical issues would cause so much annoyance and inconvenience in a place like Lagos? But of course it did, because people don’t wake up with “poor African” pasted on their foreheads. They live as citizens of the modern world. None of this is to deny the existence of social stratification and elite structures here. There are lifestyles of the rich and famous, sure. But the interesting thing about modern technology is how socially mobile it is–quite literally. Everyone in Lagos has a phone.
[/QUOTE]
People in developing countries don’t spend their whole lives worrying about Boko Haram, or starvation, or Isis, or ebola. They too have trivial interests and concerns. You think there aren’t hundreds of thousands of Africans who are gutted when their football team loses? That there are no Palestinian girls mad because their mum won’t let them wear make-up?
I’ve also seen it applied in particularly stupid ways: people worrying about their romantic/dating life is dismissed as a ‘first world problem’, for example. :dubious:
I think this writer was bending over backwards to find some way he could take offense.
The way most people use the term first world problem does not imply people outside the first world lack knowledge. The implication is really the opposite. The term implies that people in the first world worry about trivial issues because they lack knowledge of the real problems faced by people outside the first world. It’s patronizing but it’s patronizing towards first world people.
Okay, to start with, you guys are using it wrong. “First world problems” aren’t any old problem you happen to have in the first world. They are problems that come about from an abundance of resources or choices.
“My TV is broken” isn’t a first world problem. “Now that the new cable package has 7,450 channels, my TiVo fills up to quickly” is. “I don’t know where to go on vacation” isn’t a first-world problem, but “My husband is taking me to Hawaii, so now I have to waste my linch break canceling my yoga retreat” is. “I need to get my car fixed” isn’t a first world problem, but “We had to expand the garage to fit the fourth car, and the construction noise is keeping me up” is.
The term is best used regarding about yourself, in a self-deprecating way. The idea isn’t to belittle other people’s problems, it’s a way to soften a complaint you are making.
No you have this wrong. A First World Problem ™ is not any problem of the FW middle class. It is a problem which only arises as a result of wealth and plenty and presents at most a trivial inconvenience (or one easily solved with money you have) “I have too many cars to fit in my garage.” “My sandwich is too big and and it’s awkward to eat” “I have too many movies to choose from and I can’t decide”
May have been the intent but these days it’s pretty much used as a blanket “Your daughter wasn’t kidnapped by terrorists, thus your complaint is invalid”.
Can argue that it shouldn’t be used that way but so it goes. I guess every time a person misuses the phrase, you can argue with them about it. That might itself qualify as a first world problem; “We have so many stupid internet memes that people can’t keep them all straight”.
