[Graeme]

Here's an award winning essay about the power of the individual. Who knows, maybe that individual can empower a small group, a community, a nation to change the world. Perhaps another environmental problem (global warming), peak oil and WW3 can be solved by that individual.

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05- ... ibben.html

[americandream]

Who knows....I believe in Batman and Superman....and fairies and the wee folk.........

[shakespear1]

I also believe BUT the Amazon is getting close to being NY Central Park, world sea/oceans are fished out to the max, huge number of species of animals/plants/insects have been exterminated, .........

Gosh, Superman is late in coming, or perhaps he/she will never come.

[Graeme]

The point is that individuals have made a difference and have changed the world as described in the essay. You don't have to be intimated by your government. You can change their policies if you are passionate enough and want a better life for yourself, your family, nation and world. Alternatively, you can just give up (and run for the hills) if you think the situation is hopeless. Don't you want to something about the problems you face? You're right, Superman is not going to save you, but some super individual will.

[Graeme]

And to emphasise my point further, I refer you to this excellent article published in Le Monde:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here are killings every day in Iraq. Occupying troops, diplomats, aid workers and media people are killed, as are Iraqis, in far greater numbers. But President George Bush’s war is not only against opponents in Iraq and the Middle East: it is a war against his fellow Americans. IT has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. In May 2003 a Gallup poll reported that only 13% of the US public thought the war was going badly. In two years the situation has radically changed. According to a poll published by the New York Times and CBS News on 17 June, 51% now think the US should not have invaded Iraq or become involved in the war. Some 59% disapprove of Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq. More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is ter­ribly wrong, that this is not what we want our ­country to be. What is our job? To point all this out. Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming ­together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

[gg3]

Statistically it is bound to be the case that there will be individuals who can make a significant difference by themselves. But these are exception-cases, and for the vast majority, the way to have an impact on the bigger picture is in combination with others.

Western culture tends to focus on singluar individuals because they "personify" (i.e. make-a-person-out-of) various situations. This in turn creates a skewed impression that such cases are more common than they in fact are.