Yesterday, I was thinking about Revolution in general terms: what it means, what might be the goal of a modern revolution, what tools we have to hand. Today I am thinking we need to break it down a little smaller. Recently, I was arguing with a friend about whether ideology or action are more important in implementing change. His contention was that it is always an event which galvanizes the people and sets them in motion. My point was that while there is always a particular event to spark things off, those events could come and go unnoticed if there were not already an ideology in place which has a significant portion of the people at a mental tipping point. As I said to him, Rosa Parks did not just get on a bus one day and start the civil rights movement. Enough people were already caught up in the idea that classifying people according to the color of their skin is unjust that her simple action touched off massive change.

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