Fixing Problems - Guilt, Shame, Love

    Most of us like to think that we know how to solve problems. And, I think that to a pretty good degree, most of us are able to. Some people say that "throwing money" at problems is one way of resolving issues, but this can be a canard. False. Not real. Money can be helpful, but perhaps it is a placebo that helps a person or groups feel like they have overcome the issue at hand, but it might be a substitute fix for the real problem.

    All hypothetical this argument, concrete examples would be more illustrative. I am not sure I will offer one. I am keeping this line of thought in more of the abstract. However, we can discuss real world paradigms, which include such things as governments and countries. Such as the United States.

    Being this country, and who we are, we can discuss problems here versus anywhere else. Canada and Mexico, or the Bahamas and nearby Cuba, have their own ways to tackle problems, which have a closer interaction or relationship with the United States, by natural geography and proximity, which includes social relationships. It is much more likely that a person living within a short drive or boat ride to the U.S. has more chances of having shared issues and potential overlapping ways of approaching them than peoples and countries physically or culturally further away.

    Although when it comes to culturally similar values, based on language alone, as perhaps Noam Chomsky, among others, believes is an overwhelming factor of power or a central tenet of thinking and understanding, an English-speaking country like Barbados, England, or Australia is "closer" to the United States than physically closer lands than say, Iceland, or Guatemala, or even the aforementioned Mexico, or French-speaking Canada.

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Some say that different cultures are swayed and pushed by guilt versus shame, some more one than the other, and this affects behavior and the cultural values of societies more many other things, like the more secular factors of money, education, or even what some might say, ironically, religion. 

    Many have said that shame is the cultural factor most determinant in the Arab culture, for example, while Western cultures are more about guilt. That could use some more explication here, or research by me or others, but suffice it to say that many people, most of whom have read up and vetted the concept more than me, believe that Westerners are more guided and affected by guilt, which apparently is more internal, while Arabs are influence by shame. And this would implicate the perhaps profound differences between Islamic culture versus Christian peoples. Although there are people within both societies, to call them bipolar, that are the other. There are millions of Arab Christians, and there are millions of Muslims who are Western.

    Anyway, I am suggesting that these frames of motivation or incentivizing people individually or collectively are the methods, if you will, for resolving problems.

    Perhaps. 

    And what of love? All cultures have love; it is shaped differently per person, per family, per community, and on and one. Each organization, large and small, secular, religious, paid or volunteer, gives or promotes care and love in its own ways and practices.

    Some claim psychology is the answer for many of the ills that people may suffer here or anywhere. Some think this is the best way to solve internal or mental issues. Perhaps.

    Others think that power, money, and freedom that these factors enable are the best solutions to any problems. However, if money alone were the answer to the ills that people suffer, then things would be much more clear cut in how to resolve serious issues. I think that things are bigger than the money that people have been arguing over for centuries.

    Life and fixing problems are bigger than just the power or empowerment assembled by the resources of equity and available monies. With all that goes opportunity, security, health ... which many people lack. Yet many with all those things still have plenty of problems. "First world" problems? True, people should be grateful for things that they have that others do not. My mother, for instance, suffered mentally in ways that did not involve money, so much, but in part due to empathy towards those who were poor, or a whole range of other reasons that would be harder to put your finger on.

    It was beyond love and care, too. It was an issue that was perhaps beyond guilt and shame, love or hate. Go figure.

    I am not fixing many problems in writing and thinking about these things, but perhaps I am getting at something. Not sure exactly what, but for what it is worth, I wrote this on a slower Sunday morning.

    I am happy to have a free and powerful country, to be a part of it, and have relative peace and stability. Thinking about fixing problems, whether they have to do with how I and we think, or how I or we love. And if dollars or pesos or yuan have anything to do with it.