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CULTURE
America Doesn’t Solve Problems, It Treats Symptoms
The US has a long history of treating the symptoms of our cultural failures rather than addressing their root causes
From systematic racism to healthcare, criminal justice to civil liberties, Americans have a long history of attempting to treat the symptoms of our worst cultural failures rather than ever addressing their root causes.
We keep treating the same diseases while entirely ignoring what is causing them in the first place. We spend an inordinate amount of money on expensive treatments for whatever ails us, and never look at what might be causing our pain. We concentrate on short-term issues and never focus on long-term solutions.
As Americans, we scratch our heads and wonder what can possibly be done about mass shootings without ever looking at the gun lobby disguised as the elephant in the room. We grumble about refugees on our southern border but don’t recognize our role in the instability of South America. We bemoan drug-related deaths and illnesses but refuse to address the hopelessness that leads to addiction. We deplore criminal violence but won’t do anything to improve the quality of life for our nation’s poor. We rail against the exploding cost of healthcare but won’t fix a system designed to profit from our pain. We whine about corruption in government but won’t do anything to stop the flow of money that ensures that politicians are indebted to their donors instead of their constituents. We complain about the national debt but refuse to tax the ones who are most able to afford higher taxes.
People often misquote the Bible by claiming that money is the root of all evil, but anyone who has read the actual text will tell you that it is the love of money that the Bible claims is the cause, and not the actual coin. Either way, it’s safe to say that America’s worship of money is unquestionably the root cause of our moral failures.
America treats symptoms rather than solves problems because, frankly, there is no money in solving problems while there is a tremendous amount of money in treating symptoms. It’s not politically feasible to send billions of dollars in aid to countries to keep them stable, but we will happily spend trillions to bomb the shit out of them when things don’t go the way we want to, because that’s profitable — for someone we know.
If America has any chance of getting anywhere close to realizing its potential as a city on a hill, then we will have to start tackling the foundational causes of our problems, and not just throwing money or shade at them.
