Responsibility is one of the the defining characteristics of adulthood. Teenagers growing up learn not only the virtue of standing for one's words and actions, but also not to take on more responsibility than they can handle. When you try to control something completely out of your league, you will most likely fail, and even lose your grasp on the routine things you are expected to do. Unrealistic responsibility is not idealistic - it's immature.

Ideology is therefore a doubled-edged sword. Most of our ideas about society would need to be implemented on a large scale. Many people in the West therefore walk around worrying all day - or pretending to worry - about great situations: aiding starving children in the third world, converting Europe to Catholicism, or, as in the case of some groups, "saving" something enormous (the planet, the race, the civilization) from destruction. Huge abstractions, with little or no bearing on day-to-day life.

To put it simply: worrying obsessively about something that you cannot change is neurotic. Most people who want to save or change big things in the world know in their hearts that they don’t have the will or desire to do what it takes to make even a slight difference. It's modern-day hybris. So what are the real reasons why people worry about these huge abstractions, as if they really had power and will to change them?

1. It gives them license to look at people more successful than themselves and accuse them of being morally inferior.
2. Their personal identity depends on whatever belief they hold. (Have you ever noticed how most extremist and radical groups serve the function of...families?)
3. It makes them feel like there's a goal justifying their existence on earth.
4. They can tell other people off by defending a viewpoint on societal issues.
5. They can publically suggest they are caring, idealistic individuals who believe in the Good.

These people are betraying their real motives, which is to please themselves psychologically. This is why I advocate local idealism, which suggests fantasy is the key to change, but only when anchored to a local setting (e.g. the environment you encounter daily). A small segment of humanity will become top leaders at Brussels or Washington, but notice how the most radical and extreme voices tend to be the biggest basement dwellers. There's a pattern: you use a global ideology to compensate for a lack of real-life action in your own local setting. It's a disease.

For most people, first of all changing their own lives, and secondly changing their community, is a life-long work. Take Michael E. Arth, possibly the best example of a local idealist who has inspired other parts of America to adopt a new model of society:

Arth has got big visions, yes, but he’s also writing a book about them and has connections with public channels to influence other people to act on those ideas. Most of you who are sitting on great ideas will never even write a coherent article about them. Taking huge responsibility but failing to act even in your local community is nothing short of absurd.

People will accuse me of "abandoning societal reform," but they are missing the point. We should all believe in changing society, and, in effect, the world - but unless we can to rise to meet the demands of leadership, we're not going to be the ones acting on that change. To take on more responsibility than we can live up to is dishonest and leads to failure. We must begin with our own lives and the environment we are capable of influencing every day.