I don&#x27;t think essays discussing &quot;why X&quot; are limited to only talking about what the author believes the main reason to be.<p>Even if PG believes that the broader societal problem is not at all relevant here, I think it would have been a stronger essay if he&#x27;d said that and said why. Since he didn&#x27;t, I&#x27;m left to wonder whether he is even aware of the problem. A lot of guys aren&#x27;t, so a reasonable reading of this essay is that he may have written about a tree without noticing the forest.