Movement Activism Turning Mainstream

How many people prospectside are you trying to convince so that the favourable action you seek occurs?

There’s much debate around what it takes for a ‘movement’ to bring change.

There’s (at least) two pillars.

First let’s look at numbers.

Microtrends suggested you need only mobilise one percent of people to succeed.

Harvard’s Erica Chenoweth suggested the rule of 3½% to effect serious political change.

Among recent, small scale studies, one found the threshold was nearer an entire quarter. One in four.

Yet could it be the case that if only a small subset of any ‘decision makers’ need be swayed, then a well-directed proportion of say, four or five percent firmly onboard may well command significance pressure?

How well aimed are your selling efforts for such change?

Then there’s the aim of the change itself.

It is clear that across the free world, aims akin to “dismantle capitalism”, “defund the police” or “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure” are understandably doomed.

History suggests that a broad banner of simply ‘change’ also flounders.

A mantra is always helpful.

Yet no specific suggestions on what to change is a recipe for continued status quo.

So even better, ally with a statistic.

(The rallying efforts, for instance, of 350.org particularly admirable in this regard).

Specificity moves mantra into manifesto. Vague slogans, even those with which no-one disagrees, only get you so far. A step towards any actionable granularity brings any ‘change’ way closer.