[fendrak]

Speaking as someone who's lived through the opposite experience (grew up seeing the wrong thing not believing, found the right thing and believed), I think it comes from the repeated dissonance between reading/being taught one thing, and then not seeing that thing actually lived out. Turns out that when you actually see people practicing what they preach on a large scale, things can turn out quite different!

I can only imagine people don't try and affect change for the same reasons they don't try and affect change in politics at large, namely that the issue seems so large that they can't see themselves making any headway against a seemingly advancing tide.