Problems become problems when we decide they’re problems. What modern Americans would call ‘sexism’ was a common practice for most of human history. It still is in many parts of the world.
What Americans would today call ‘child abuse’ is what medieval Europeans would call ‘proper parenting.’
And cultures don’t always agree what does and does not constitute a problem. Allowing abortion is a problem for some Americans. Not allowing abortion is a problem for other Americans.
Witches were a big problem for colonial Americans.
This all sounds obvious, I know. And it is. But most people don’t consider that there’s a global marketplace for social problems.
People are constantly selling their problems and the media is constantly in the market to buy them. The media repackages and resells them to the general public. For the media, problems make profit.
The media and the public resell them to policymakers. Policymakers resell them to other policymakers, then make new claims, then resell these claims to the general public via voting initiatives. There’s good money to be made for some people when the status quo shifts. Ever wondered why sodas have corn syrup instead of cane sugar?
