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One could cite the case of China, for instance, which, for no fault of its own was devastated by the British Empire over the space of the two opium wars and decades of massive looting that followed. The Chinese nation didn't create this national catastrophe upon itself, yet this catastrophe defined its history. Neither can the Chinese nation be faulted for the circumstances which gave rise to the Chiang Kai-Sheck era of corrupt and brutal imperial dictatorship that brought years of war with Japan (1937 - 1945) during which the Japanese attacks on Chinese cities killed twenty million people and, of course, completely destroyed China's economy. Nor can the Chinese nation be faulted for the outcome that set the stage for the emergence of Mao Zedong and his communist revolution, in which tens of millions more lost their life.
It appears that very little of China's history was made by the Chinese people who were but swept into compliance to numerous larger forces that determined the nation's history. But is this appearance true?
It is certainly true that this tragic history wasn't intentionally created. It unfolded, as it were, by default. But did the Chinese people have no hand in creating the background of insufficient scientific, technological, and political development that had set the stage for the tragedies to occur? This default condition was the result of choices, was it not? As in many countries, so in China, it was the result of erroneous choices. The regression into chaos that destroyed the country repeatedly reflects a lack of created history of the type that had determined the future of North America where a reasoned consensus had enabled a people to shed their subjection to colonialism, and based on previously discovered principles, unite themselves into a nation that successfully withstood the mightiest military, political, and economic force on the planet, based on these principles. Here, history was 'made.' The American nation repeatedly repulsed the same British imperial forces that had so utterly and easily devastated China. Nor can the people's cultural history be blamed for the difference. China has had the longest running civilization in the world. The difference may be found in the self-education that the North American farmers had pursued, who were referred to in Europe as the "Latin" farmers.
The true makers of human history are those who, by their action, have transformed the world and given it a more distinctly human character, contrary to the character of a beast. The makers of history are those who have brought light into the world by virtue of their having lived, who have enriched the human sphere out of the depth of their genius. These types of people are found in all places and are people from all walks of life. We may recognize them as outstanding poets, scientists, philosophers, statesmen, economists, but these, mostly, were geniuses who had developed their native abilities for the advancement of good.
This perception, too, can be misleading when 'genius' is understood in the conventional sense as an exceptional condition. Genius is inherent in the human species. It is universal. Still, it is subject to discovery and individual development. No one is born with any specific life-plan predefined, like a script that defines an actor's role. There is no such predestination in reality. Every person starts from the same infinite base upon which the tallest achievement can be built, and have been built, and can be superseded. In this domain of conscious self-development, expressed in the self-development of society, history is made and civilization is created.
Without such a process - that is, without the process of individual self-development of the human genius - human history would be nothing more than an endless struggle against the limits of nature. This is the condition under which the human population had once lived, by which it had remained limited to app. 1-2 million people world-wide. In comparative terms, the early human beings lived a hard and primitive life with a life-expectancy of less then 20 years. The fact that human history shows a development far beyond this primitive state and its limits, shows that the human species is powered by a genius that exists in no other known species, which enables humanity to create new conditions for itself for the benefit of its advancement. With this break-out, by which the development of intelligence sets humanity apart from any other known species, an era of determined history began on this planet.
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