balladeer - Society is pretty big... If people don't know that they have a choice, who is going to clean up the results of their actions? The rest of us. Society.
When individual choices make a society that has such momentum as to prevent certain other individuals from acting in a healthy, sane way, then that is society's fault. You can't find the individuals in any large society who made that society become a reality. And then people are hampered in their choices by what that society says is their choice.
To say that society is to blame is not a way of avoiding individual responsibility.
To say that society is to blame means that we each have the responsibility to affect that society in a sane way. We each need, through our own actions and decisions, to build a sane society. What I mean by a sane society, is an environment where all people realize they have those moments of choice, and to give them the tools needed to choose well, each according to reality, logic, heart, and their own consciences.
We currently live in a society that is not exactly sane. It was much worse back then. How much insanity can a normal person take before they go insane? And if they are overexposed to insanity through no fault of their own, how can you blame them for becoming insane?
Yes, we all still need to clean up the mess, but have some compassion here!