Personally, I think unless you have an ACTIVE 12th house, not a bunch of planets in the 12th or some other lame natal event but, an ACTIVE 12th house, then none of us are really qualified to speak about the "real world" or how positive we've "handled" it. It's moot.
Now, you want to know the 12th house? Then go to where the 12th house is and meet the people that LIVE in the 12th house; prisons, institutions, secluded lonely places, places where large animals roam (think elephants and, more locally, horses which by the way are all endangered and hunted and probably live in fear if I may anthopomorphize for a moment). Of course, most people don't won't or can't do this so, comments about it are really, at best, trivialized and uninformed.
What was true THEN is the same NOW. Nothing has changed except the scenery (and the fact that we can kill more people, animals and things, faster, and more efficiently than back in the days of camels as one poster put it.) BUT, people are still the same, same needs, weakness, dreams and desires. Humans have evolved.....I'm sorry, I ran out thoughts on that. Where have they evolved besides tools? And who would recognize an evolved person it if it landed in front of them?
And, AGAIN, the 12th house is NOT the only house in/out there. However, stripping it of it's essential (albeit, traditional) meaning by those who can sit, free and relatively well-heeled and philosophise about it does nothing for those who really MAY have an ACTIVE 12th house and need more than fluff to keep them safe or free. If you are free and well-heeled it is safe to say you have no idea, really, about the 12th.
Perhaps my hang-up while we are hanging out in the 12th is that I even care what people think about the 12th. Why should I? I'm not here to convince or convert. But, it makes for almost non-existant conversation if we cannot evaluate our own perspectives through discussion.
The key word is perspective, however. The 12th IS the 12th regardless what people think about it. One really has to be objective to see what is going on rather than just blaming astrology or the ancients for being wrong, or primitive or out-of-date. Perhaps it's just plain ol' denial.
"Things are tough all over, cupcake. It rains on the just and the unjust alike."
-Sally, from Watchmen