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This is the most American idea in the world; to older, more experienced, more "sophisticated" civilizations it appears to be hopelessly naive, charmingly infantile at best, laughably idiotic at worst. An old Sicilian or an old Parisian sitting in his coffee shop and staring out at the ancient cobbled stone streets knows but one truth, which is that everyone is what he is, and no one ever changes.
Wouldn't be so fast to call the ancients delusional. The fatalistic view is also popular in Eastern philosophy, where Western concepts of control over destiny are seen as naïve and arrogant.