Do we want to target all of the individual problems one buy one, each in their own time, taking generations and generations to resolve one after the other? Or, do we want to go to the root causal source foundation that will allow us to change ourselves so that we no longer produce or support the things that we don't want, and resolve multiple effects through one single root cause? And some of these things -- we may think we want them now, but if we evolve our consciousness and gain more self-knowledge, we come to realize that we don't actually want these things and they are not really helping or serving us or our betterment.
Every problem, from nations and economic systems to behaviors of whatever kind, each represent some specific effect as a secondary manifestation from the cause of human consciousness. You can try to deal with one thing after the other and think that that's the best way to deal with it. Or you can trace why all of the secondary manifestations are even existing and realize the common root of the problem which comes from individual consciousnesses on this planet. Both consciousnesses that create wrongdoings either willingly or ignorantly, and consciousnesses that support wrongdoings through ignorance, apathy or cowardice.
In order to resolve the current incorrect manifested effects we have in the world and prevent future incorrect manifestations, all of humanity needs to take part in a process of evolving consciousness and get on the same page of understanding who we are and what not to do.
Otherwise, trying to get the problems/effects resolved that we are creating/manifesting without actually having us address why we are creating it and changing ourselves so that we no longer desire or are motivated to create in that way, then all we are really doing is playing a shell game going from one problem to the other and trying to apply Band-Aids of external control to stop people from doing things without actually leading them out of the darkness through education.
In order for us to do things differently, we must first be aware of the many drives and motivations that are leading our current behavior. Much of these drives and motivations are unconscious, automatic, involuntary bio-natural aspects of our human nature. Many are also nurtured motivations and drives that come from our conditioning of our environment, such as society, parents, school, media, etc.
We need to analyze ourselves and become aware of what our drives and motivations are, and then understand why we are keeping these drives and motivations to generate behavior our behavior. If we don't understand what our drives or motivations are, nor why we even have them (such as them being automatic bio-natural processes that we can override, or conditioned from our environment that we can override), then we will not be aware of ourselves and the reasons (why) we engage in the behavior we do (what).
This is part of the importance of knowing thyself, the path to wisdom. Wisdom is about right-action, and that is to know the difference between what is right and wrong, i.e. morality. I have explained this before in other posts. Self-knowledge eventually leads to morality as the path to greater wisdom for living. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Learning how to think is part of that. We need to think deeper and better so that we can realize what is going on and why it's happening.
We need to know what we are doing and why we are doing things if we want to know whether what we are doing is right or wrong and how to stop doing them. This is part of living an examined life, to become authentic in driving and motivating your life with more conscious will instead of unconscious drives pushing you to act. We can self-realize, actualize and individuate ourselves by our own hands. Without willful self-analysis, contemplation, introspection, and not thinking about what we are really doing or why, then by default we live automatic involuntary lives of being driven by motives that we are not even aware of.
This is be "unconscious" of ourselves. Being in a position that lacks knowledge is ignorance, which inhibits potential choices and from choosing the best and better option. If we want to empower ourselves to change the world, we must first learn to be empowered in understanding ourselves and change ourselves first. As each person changes themselves on an individual micro-scale, we collectively aggregate to change everything at the macro-scale. It doesn't take every single person to affect a cascade of change but everybody counts.
Understanding why is at the core of being empowered to change things.