Problems and dysfunction are individual matters, personal matters, that can be attacked at their roots (if we have the will to take it on) or one by one (if we don’t).

Yes but we also shouldn’t go too far in the other direction and make the error of ascribing everything to individualism. Some “problems and dysfunctions” have their roots in societal inequities. It’s the myth of meritocracy, and the blindness of privilege, that allows so many Republican-leaning types to talk about pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps (of course assuming one has any boots to begin with) and talk about welfare as an “entitlement program.” As Elizabeth Edwards recently said, it’s not about handing people opportunities, but clearing the obstacles in their path so that they can pursue those opportunities themselves.