There are many people who hold a belief that people create their reality, that   
   there are no unwilling victims, and that people are fully in charge of   
   everything that happens to them. There are other people who hold the view that   
   everything is fatally or    
   socially determined, that free will is an illusion, and that greater forces   
   are shaping history all the time regardless of people's individual views on   
   the matter. Both are wrong.   
      
   Any knowledge of history reveals that there are plenty of unwilling victims,   
   and that people influence one another in all sorts of ways all the time.   
   Denying this is not enlightenment; it is denying reality. The four-year-old   
   children who got placed in    
   gas ovens under the Nazis are the most obvious example of unwilling, innocent   
   victims of other people's wrongdoing. To blame them for what has happened to   
   them is a monstrosity.   
      
   Knowledge of history also shows people moving history in any direction at any   
   time. Empires rise and fall all the time; and civilization constantly changes.   
   People can choose whether to go to war or to solve their problems peacefully   
   all the time. The    
   Communist claim that the world is moving inevitably toward Communist future   
   has proven wrong. And in world history, we see everything from Genghis Khan,   
   to Louis XIV, to Caesar, to Soviet Union, to Native Americans, to Australia,   
   to the Pala kingdom. And    
   in America itself, we have seen everything from Theodore Roosevelt to Harry   
   Truman to Reagan to Clinton to George Bush Jr.   
      
   How to make sense of all this? Just through this: Sense. I am not generally an   
   exponent of common sense, but in this case the commonsensical explanation is   
   rightful. People are responsible for what they do. We do not create our   
   reality; we however    
   contribute to reality. Which means that it becomes incumbent on us to make our   
   contributions to reality the best that they can be.   
      
   In this are avoided the errors of both solipsism and fatalism. We are neither   
   helpless nor omnipotent. We have power over our lives; sometimes we have power   
   over the lives of other people such as our children as parents, our employees   
   as businessmen, and    
   our constituents as politicians. Any workable concept of enlightenment or   
   wisdom will recognise this and work within that framework. And any concept of   
   enlightenment or wisdom that does not recognise this cannot be seen as wisdom   
   or enlightenment.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)