10%

At times there doesn’t seem to be much hope of positive change. News outlets and social media content tend to be dominated by the bad things that go on around us. Legendary comedian Mitch Hedberg even had a joke that said something about the news basically being just a recap of the worst things that happened near you today. When we are constantly inundated with what is going wrong it is hard to think that things could get better.

What’s more is that one can become overwhelmed by this feeling of helplessness. Why do the right thing when it doesn’t seem to matter much? How can the actions of one person really affect anything? Truth is that we have very limited control over our lives, but what we can control can have a big pretty big impact.

There have been scientific studies suggesting that it only takes around 10% of the population to commit to a novel idea for it to become the prevailing opinion of the entire group. This works on the micro level in small to medium sized groups such as families or business organizations. It can also work on the macro level when it comes to national political movements or even global movements.

There are even more recent studies done by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth that find that 3.5% of the population of a country actively participating in civil and non-violent protest is enough to affect political action. Chenoweth’s research goes on to show that non-violent campaigns were twice as successful in achieving their goals as violent campaigns.

I’ve written about the incongruence of our actual control versus our perceived control in previous posts. I still stand by that argument because it wasn’t a critique of actual action. My argument focused on the time wasted engaging with media that does more to entertain than to inform. I was also trying to point out that the goals of most ‘news’ organizations, be they traditional or new/digital/social, is to keep our attention for as long as possible to sell advertising. Informing the public is secondary to attention retention and profit.

One can say that is a cynical perspective. I accept that as being true and echo that a dose of cynicism is perhaps necessary when approaching organizations we are supposed to trust. If they can make it through the gauntlet of cynicism and critique then they can become trusted news. If they can’t then they are just leeches trying to suck away our time, energy, and resources by appearing to have true value.

The 10% or 3.5% theory is different because it is active. Over-consumption of information from cable news or social media is passive. Doing something about the information is active. There are examples of this 10% and 3.5% theory at work in our recent history. How many people were committed to the messaging of Trump at the end of his presidency? He received quite a lot of votes, but certainly everyone that voted for him didn’t attend the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally, storm the Capitol, or buy into the Big Lie. It only took a small percentage of the population to be fully committed to that rhetoric to make a movement out of it.

The same can be seen on the other side with something like the electric car. Super Bowl commercials are usually a good indicator of the direction of mass culture and commerce. This year there were no commercials for traditional gas-power vehicles. I believe every car commercial was highlighting their electric models. Electric vehicles certainly do not dominate the market, but there is a big enough push for major companies to invest a lot of their future in EVs.

What this can do is empower the person. We can be committed to ideas that we believe in. The old ideas are dying and while they may seem to be dying at a snail’s pace, they are indeed dying. The new ideas of the 21st century are starting to come to the forefront of society. Very few major shifts in the history of civilization have been embraced by the majority of the population from the start. Usually good ideas are first recognized by a very small percentage of the population.

It is much easier as a member of the general population to just float with the current of the mainstream. There is usually enough going on in the average citizen’s life to consume most of their time and energy. Working, keeping up a home, raising kids, caring for older family members, and a slew of other things tend to keep most of us busy most of the time. To have the extra energy and bandwidth to stay on the cutting edge of trends and ideas is a tall task.

So that results in a small percentage of people that have the time, energy, and wherewithal to recognize and commit to novel ideas. I would assume that most of the standards of tomorrow are already the novel concepts of today.

It is common for a person to believe that they are living in important times. How could it not seem like that? We are all the stars of our own movie. No matter how humble one may be they are still the main character of their experience. This adds a heaviness of importance to the times their story took place. I’m not sure if we live in truly historic times or if our egos and our hubris blind us. It sure feels like we are living in a unique and exciting period of history, but we also live with an information industry that relies on engagement. How many times can we be told that the upcoming election will be the most important election of our lifetimes? Seems that happens every cycle and it also seems it is a ploy to keep us tuning in.

I suppose the overarching idea here is that while we don’t have a ton of control over the course of society there is evidence that small change compounds into big change over time. It may seem like solutions aren’t progressing very fast when it comes to issues like climate change or equity among people, but for those causes and many others like it the train has already pulled away from the station. Those causes already have their 3.5% or 10%. They already have the momentum. The only question left is how long it will take for those causes to reach the mass levels of acceptance required for serious action?

I appreciate your time and hope you’ve found some value in this.
Thanks for reading.