Hmmm. Okay, are the people shaped by the system? Or is the system shaped by the people? Or is it both?

I think it's a bit of both, but it's true that the North American public at present are remarkably passive and are suckers for whatever delusions and appetites their mass media feeds them, so I think that it's mostly the system that is shaping the people nowadays rather than the other way around.

Now, in the case of the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution you had a situation where the people (some of them) took matters into their own hands (under the leadership of a few political firebrands, idealists, and rabble-rousers) and brought the ruling system down. Such things can happen when the general public gets really desperate. People aren't that desperate yet in North America. I think they will have to get that desperate before the system makes really significant changes for the better.

Significant changes for the worse, on the other hand....those can emanate quite readily from the system as it is, I think....or could emanate from the people too, because the people will sometimes support an absolutely terrible government if they're scared enough about something.