<p>Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general?</p>
<pre><code>What can you do? Ever since history, an individuals role in affecting the community has been trivial. True, there are smaller communities that you can influence, but in the end, it will not matter much to the entire world. It is only when people collectively take responsibility for solving problems that the world will change. Even so, modern history and literature has shown that collective action of the people cannot be trusted to make important decisions in the larger community.
The Russian Revolution was a debacle from the very beginning. In the anarchy of the World War I, popular revolution forced the tsar to abdicate, replacing a conservative regime with a moderate government that was unable to bring the situation under control. The peoples decision to end centuries of the tsarist autocracy in the February Revolution of 1917 brought a situation that no one was able to make sense of. Soon after, the Bolsheviks military coup in the October Revolution ushered in a Communist regime that proved detrimental for the people in the years to come. With strict government censorship, the Russian Civil War, and the Red Terror that followed, Russia was swept into the chaos of communism because of the actions a group of idealists had taken. Thus, collective action has proven both insensible and destructive in Russia.
Similarly, in the Korean novel The Last Movement by Hong Dong Gil, which takes place in modern society, a group of people trying to bring about the unification of the North and South are destroyed by their own recklessness. Bringing about terror in Seoul of a second Korean War, these peoples willingness to take more responsibility for solving the economic problems of North Korea result in the emergence of fear and anarchy. Towards the conclusion of the novel, the protagonist Jong Wook declares, Everything has been futile. It was not up to us from the very beginning to change the state of society. In this way, the novel highlights the ineffectiveness and danger of people trying to make a difference, despite the best of intentions.
True, peoples willingness to take responsibility has shown its power and positive outcome in the past, most clearly in the example of the American Revolution. The Americans recognized that they were under unfair rule and protested against Taxation without Representation. Despite its outcome, the revolution would not have been successful if not for the help of the French. The Americans thus demonstrated that they were in some ways rash in starting a revolution that they could not bring about by themselves.
Granted that peoples responsible actions were effective to some extent in the past, modern history and opinion illustrates that collective action to affect the larger community in midst of an established state of affairs has proven fruitless.
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