Small consistent acts of resistance can reshape institutions over decades

Evidence

What if we began to live our lives believing that even small actions we consistently take now—a practice of faithful resistance—can reverberate through our communities, congregations, denominations, nation, and world? Changes we make to our organizations and institutions now can dramatically alter their functioning in decades to come. Even simple questions we pose to fellow Christians and our organizations that break through the taken-for-grantedness of Christian nationalism can have an impact. Questions like those that I faced at various moments of my journey might alter individual and organizational trajectories. — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 119

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This is near-identical in structure to the grafting article’s thesis about small root-graft-like connections changing whole groves — small consistent acts as slow infrastructure.
• XREF: connects to: Resistance acts often reinscribe capitalist and bourgeois power rather than escape it — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 78; Defeated anti-modern resistance persists latently and eventually uses modernity’s own tools — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 144; Protest movements must become robust institutions to have lasting impact (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Resistance acts often reinscribe capitalist and bourgeois power rather than escape it #complicates (0.82) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 78
• Institutions once deemed inevitable became unthinkable through political struggle #corroborates (0.80) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 57
• Individual resistance is too weak to counter coercive organizational pressure #contradicts (0.79)
• Protest movements must become robust institutions to have lasting impact #expands (0.78)
• Political systems are structured to resist change and preserve existing relations. #complicates (0.76) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1365
• Defeated anti-modern resistance persists latently and eventually uses modernity’s own tools #qualifies (0.74) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 144