A certain lack of empathy is on the rise alongside inflation

If you’ve been explained your humble financial status in a condescending way from someone who is well-off, you’ve probably been richsplained. 

Richsplaining, which is another one of those linguistic mashups with “explaining”, like mansplaining, is no new term but is perhaps resurfacing and entering the zeitgeist now due to global economic downturn and inflation. The critical point of richsplaining is that explanation or advice is given in an ignorant and patronizing context. There’s an element of talking down and assuming you know better despite never having been in the other person’s shoes. Think men explaining abortion to women or a straight person explaining coming out to a queer person (straightsplaining). 

Richsplaining, sometimes called wealthsplaining, was possibly first coined by writer John Scalzi in a 2011 blog post, where he said, “I suspect in my case it would have been even more work for the rest of the world if I hadn’t had the experience of growing up poor, which meant that every time I saw or read someone who’d never been poor expound obliviously on what was really going on with poor people, I had to fight back the urge to beat them to death with a hammer. The experience of having to deal with people wealthsplaining poverty, and then trying to get them to listen to someone who had spent actual time in poverty, made it possible for me to more easily conceptualize the idea there were lots of subjects about which I had great potential to show my ass simply by opening my mouth.”  

The word has started to appear in Thai vernacular and Thai media lately, as Thailand faces 14-year high inflation, straining middle- and lower-income households. The average 15,000-20,000 baht (US$414-552) monthly salary for fresh graduates or entry-level jobs in urban areas doesn’t leave them much in savings, if any, after necessary expenses such as rent and utilities, commute, food, and family support. Old-age allowance is also still 600-1,000 baht (US$16-28) monthly. 

As you can imagine, the last thing anyone struggling to support themselves or their family in today’s climate wants to hear is that they’re not focused enough, from someone who doesn’t need to worry. The best thing the financially secure can do is shut up and listen to the other side, and if you don’t have anything constructive to say after that, don’t say anything at all.