# How to Change the World  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: How to Change the World - Show: Hidden Brain - Owner / Host: Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam - Guests: [Erica Chenoweth](https://share.snipd.com/person/6df7b772-d33d-4a32-9da4-bc836587613a), [Ranjay Gulati](https://share.snipd.com/person/ffaa3995-1d52-4aa6-bfed-f9b16b6ec545) - Episode publish date: 2026-04-13 - Episode AI description: Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist who studies civil resistance, explains why nonviolent campaigns often outperform violent ones. Ranjay Gulati, a behavioral scientist and leadership professor, explores how courage is cultivated through action and reflection. They discuss mass participation, tactical innovation, the 3.5% tipping point, and how acting bravely builds future bravery. - Mentioned books: [The Diary Of Anne Frank](https://share.snipd.com/book/6e841c46-1da6-47f5-b6d3-32f6881af688) by [Anne Frank](https://share.snipd.com/person/f38ff279-70ac-463f-a4e9-e1fa87d81e5f), [Recovering nonviolent history](https://share.snipd.com/book/a8b36f45-01fe-41cc-b3a7-c2877b662a8f) by [Maciej J. Bartkowski](https://share.snipd.com/person/8e3ab764-c34c-49d0-80b9-ce44af141f29), [How to Be Bold](https://share.snipd.com/book/155c32fa-8187-437b-ba3a-552d544f2479) by [Ranjay Gulati](https://share.snipd.com/person/ffaa3995-1d52-4aa6-bfed-f9b16b6ec545), [Why Civil Resistance Works](https://share.snipd.com/book/c33bdc6c-66bd-47c7-a9b3-b081399b2f8e) by [Maria Stephan](https://share.snipd.com/person/2c98219a-42b3-4007-bf3e-55ad2a3af743), [Erica Chenoweth](https://share.snipd.com/person/6df7b772-d33d-4a32-9da4-bc836587613a), [Zlata's Diary](https://share.snipd.com/book/bb04de12-3e7d-46b7-9f87-214feb5850ce) by [Zlata Filipović](https://share.snipd.com/person/928dbb39-81d8-4a10-a054-05f255d4c1c1) - Duration: 01:30:33 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/a718d5a6-c802-4656-a435-54fefa01ca4b) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/c94a26f6-1a03-4020-a574-bec10c59f432) - Export date: 2026-07-08T01:13:06 ## Snips ### [Nonviolent Resistance Beats Armed Insurgency](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3e76ab37-243c-4cf2-bff5-b536b8bfa045) 🎧 19:15 - 21:10 (01:55) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/3bd7b088-1c1c-457f-abf1-13eefdc8be2c" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones across 1900–2006 data. - Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan found nonviolent movements won ~50% of the time versus ~25% for armed resistance, surprising skeptics. #### 💬 Quote > The nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to have succeeded as their violent counterparts. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on comparative effectiveness of nonviolent campaigns #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** Erica and Maria began to analyze hundreds of cases of conflict and rebellion starting in the year 1900. Erica, I want to start by looking at some of the cases you and Maria examined. And let's start with this one. In October 2000, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the city of Belgrade. There were massive demonstrations calling for government reform. One evening in October, a large crowd gathered in front of the city's parliament building. They chanted, he's finished, he's finished. Who were they talking about? Well, they were talking about Slobodan Milosevic. **Erica Chenoweth:** One of his nicknames is the Butcher of the Balkans, who had stolen an election that had taken place in the previous weeks. And the movement that organized in advance of the election had expected Milosevic to lie about the results of the election and had set up these parallel vote tabulation and very well-organized kind of verification processes to demonstrate the fraud. So **Shankar Vedantam:** the Serbian organization was called Otpor, and Otpor really became famous for using humor and theatrics in their anti-Milosovic protests. One such campaign was called a dinar for change. Activists painted Milosevic's face on a barrel and placed it in front of the Belgrade National Theater. People who passed by could pay a small amount of money to then hit the painting with a bat. was like a game you play at a county fair. I want to play you a clip of one of the leaders, Sergei Popovich, explaining the strategy in a TED Talk. We **Ranjay Gulati:** put the big petrol barrel with a, you know, portrait picture of Mr. President on it. In the middle of the mainstream, there was a hole on the top. So you could literally come, put the coin in, get the baseball bat, and hit his face. --- ### [Otpor Used Humor To Unnervethe Regime](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f52911b1-c983-4a66-918b-91a4aa349e87) 🎧 19:28 - 25:54 (06:25) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1b83ed70-c599-4773-875b-da76c770fd4e" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Otpor in Serbia used humor and dilemma actions like a coin-in-a-barrel allowing people to smash Milosevic's face. - The tactic forced police into humiliating choices and helped expand participation to older citizens. #### 💬 Quote > People could pay a small amount of money to then hit the painting with a bat. > — Shankar Vedantam Shankar Vedantam describing Otpor's dinar for change action #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** In October 2000, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the city of Belgrade. There were massive demonstrations calling for government reform. One evening in October, a large crowd gathered in front of the city's parliament building. They chanted, he's finished, he's finished. Who were they talking about? Well, they were talking about Slobodan Milosevic. **Erica Chenoweth:** One of his nicknames is the Butcher of the Balkans, who had stolen an election that had taken place in the previous weeks. And the movement that organized in advance of the election had expected Milosevic to lie about the results of the election and had set up these parallel vote tabulation and very well-organized kind of verification processes to demonstrate the fraud. So **Shankar Vedantam:** the Serbian organization was called Otpor, and Otpor really became famous for using humor and theatrics in their anti-Milosovic protests. One such campaign was called a dinar for change. Activists painted Milosevic's face on a barrel and placed it in front of the Belgrade National Theater. People who passed by could pay a small amount of money to then hit the painting with a bat. It like a game you play at a county fair. I want to play you a clip of one of the leaders, Sergei Popovich, explaining the strategy in a TED Talk. We **Ranjay Gulati:** put the big petrol barrel with a, you know, portrait picture of Mr. President on it. In the middle of the mainstream, there was a hole on the top. So you could literally come, put the coin in, get the baseball bat, and hit his face. Sounds loud. We were sitting in a nearby cafe having coffee, and there was a clue of people waiting to do this lovely thing. Well, that's just the beginning of the show. The real show starts when the police appears. What they will do? Arrest the shoppers with kits? Doesn't make sense. Of course, you could bet, they've done the most stupid thing, they arrested the barrel. And now the picture of the smashed face on the barrel with the policeman drugging them to the police car, that was the best day for the photographers from newspapers that they ever will have. What **Erica Chenoweth:** was the effect of this campaign, Erika? There's no doubt that Otpor had a really important impact on opening people's minds to imagining a new future. One of the long-term legacies of that campaign was the different types of tactical innovations that were experimented with there. In particular, the type of method that Sergei was just describing is called a dilemma action. And a dilemma action is something that Otpor really perfected. The dilemma is, what do you do, right? So do you just leave it and ignore it? Then you have all of these people smashing Milosevic's face. Or do you arrest somebody, anybody who's there, create a scene? It would look illegitimate. Or do you put the barrel in the police car and then, you know, it's sort of this humiliating and absurd political theater. But it's a technique that is now used in a much more widespread way, I would think, because the logic of it is clearer to people. And the other thing, of course, is the humor. And humor is really important as a way to really poke at the invincibility kind of myth or narrative that exists among many different autocrats or autocratic movements. And so if there's one thing that we know that autocrats don't like, it's people laughing at them. One of my favorite vignettes comes from Morocco, where there is an independence movement in Western Sahara. And it's illegal to fly the colors of the flag of the independence movement. And there was a group of protesters who wanted to mobilize a flag, an illegal flag flying protest. And they announced in advance that this would be taking place so that the authorities would show up. But instead of themselves showing up to fly the flag, they basically rounded up a of stray cats and tied the flags onto their tails and then released them into a crowded area where then the riot police were like chasing them up and down narrow alleys and stuff. And this is a real dilemma action because it creates this like ludicrous scene of absurd political theater. But, you know, they also couldn't arrest anybody. Literally **Shankar Vedantam:** herding cats, huh? **Erica Chenoweth:** Exactly. Literally herding cats, but not able to really figure out who the real protest organizers were. **Shankar Vedantam:** So the Serbian police began to crack down on Odpur. They were arresting the protesters, many of whom were teenagers, and they were also calling the protesters terrorists. But increasingly, it wasn't just young people who were involved. Older people were getting increasingly drawn into the struggle. Why was that? Well, **Erica Chenoweth:** I think that the movement likely did a very good job of appealing to a wider and wider base of supporters. There was a period in which they were experiencing a pretty high degree of police repression. And I was told by one activist there that they began organizing something called grandparents protests, which is when they would ask their retired grandparents to come and march or demonstrate with them. And at those marches, they noticed the police were much less likely to start swinging their batons at the crowd. There was just a taboo against beating the elderly in public, and they exploited that taboo. And, by the way, also increased their numbers and the diversity of their campaign. **Shankar Vedantam:** What was the final outcome of the protest? Did it work? It **Erica Chenoweth:** did. Milosevic announced that he was retiring to spend more time with his grandson. He fled. He fled the square. And the movement effectively walked through the line of policemen who obviously were not going to fire on them anymore and occupied the parliament building. --- ### [Sudanese Strike Withheld Regime Cooperation](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f25d6fc6-cc44-4fa4-a4aa-55287c506503) 🎧 26:08 - 29:24 (03:15) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/741ce383-24be-49a4-ae5b-ded038304578" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Sudan's SPA combined mass protests with a general strike and stay-aways after the Khartoum massacre. - The general strike withheld cooperation from the junta and pressured them into negotiating a transition. #### 💬 Quote > Nobody's going to work until we have the opportunity to be at the table negotiating a peaceful transition to democracy. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on the Sudanese Professionals Association tactics #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** The country of Sudan was ruled for nearly 30 years by President Omar al-Bashir, who was a brutal dictator. He presided over the genocide in the Darfur region of southern Sudan in the early 2000s. Now, there were periodic uprisings over the years, but the security forces quickly suppressed them. But then in December 2018, protests erupted across the country after the government raised fuel and food prices. The demonstrations were organized by a group called the Sudanese Professionals Association. What were the techniques they used? One **Erica Chenoweth:** of the most important techniques that the SPA was able to organize en masse was a general strike and various other limited strikes and stay-aways. And stay-aways can be really important for movements that are facing brutal regimes because unlike mass demonstrations, they don't necessarily place people in positions of directly confronting the agents of repression. But in this case, there were also mass demonstrations, sit-ins, marches, protests. They used a really wide range of nonviolent methods in the course of that campaign. **Shankar Vedantam:** So soon after these protests really became widespread, al-Bashir was actually removed in a coup, and the Sudanese military established a military council. But the SBA kept protesting. They wanted the coup leaders to hand over power to the people and establish a democracy. And this led to something that's now known as the Khartoum massacre. What happened, Erica? **Erica Chenoweth:** Yeah, so what was happening there is that there was a massive sit-in outside of the military headquarters demanding that the civilians be represented in the new government and that a to democracy take place as soon as possible. And various security forces committed a mass atrocity. They killed and sexually assaulted and tortured over 100 people, some of whose bodies they dumped in the Nile River. And in the aftermath of that event, the SPA wisely, I think, called for a general strike and mass non-cooperation. And the reason I say it was incredibly wise and strategic is, again, it didn't necessarily put people in direct contact with those militias and security forces by calling for a massive 4 million strong demonstration, but instead say nobody's going to work until we have the opportunity to be at the table negotiating a peaceful transition to democracy. And it was a remarkably effective maneuver because not only did it help to keep people involved and engaged, but it also disrupted the day-to order of things so that the transitional junta didn't feel like it had a way out other than to work with some of the civilian representatives to negotiate an outcome. --- ### [Violence Alienates Potential Supporters](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cd707a96-4ab0-49fe-9e54-7dca3cdcfd1f) 🎧 30:48 - 32:55 (02:07) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a1b2bfad-e84d-470c-8ed2-e42fc32a09f0" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Episodes of violence by a largely nonviolent movement shrink public support, especially among sympathetic but unaffiliated citizens. - Spain's 15M saw average support drop ~12% after a turn to violence, harming expansion potential. #### 💬 Quote > The average support for the movement dropped by about 12% in the aftermath of that event. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on 15M movement violence effects #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** In May 2011, there was a wave of protests in Spain calling for socioeconomic reform. These were largely peaceful. The movement called itself 15M. It was named after May 15th, which is when these demonstrations began. People began occupying central squares in the main cities of Spain, and a large percentage of the public, about 65%, supported 15M. Can you tell me what happened in the course of these protests that caused some of them to turn violent, and the effects of this turn on public opinion? **Erica Chenoweth:** Basically, there was an episode in which some of the protesters were provoked into using violence in one way or the other. And there were a couple of social scientists who had been conducting surveys on opinions toward the movement before that event took place, and then they were able to do surveys after that event took place as well. And what they found is that the average support for the movement dropped by about 12% in the aftermath of that event. And the findings were qualified somewhat in the sense that among people who already were very supportive of the movement, there wasn't a very large drop in support. But among people who were kind of adjacent to the movement politically, who were sympathetic to the movement before, or who were kind of not affiliated with the movement in any way, there was a much bigger decline in support. So in other words, the episode of violence tended to have very little effect on base solidarity, but it had a pretty big effect on alienating potential third-party supporters of the movement that would have allowed it to expand its base. And so I think the key takeaway of that study is that these types of incidents can be really risky for movements that are trying to expand their base of supporters. And expanding the base of supporters is one of the key things that nonviolent resistance campaigns need to do to win. --- ### [Why Nonviolent Campaigns Win Strategically](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ec9b06a6-5a76-44f7-8426-38156071aae4) 🎧 40:00 - 42:34 (02:33) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d3462508-9a74-4f8d-877a-425d80db6a5a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Four mechanisms explain nonviolent success: mass participation, shifting regime loyalties, tactical innovation, and organizational resilience. - Nonviolent tactics like strikes and stay-aways remove pillars of regime support rather than appealing to a dictator's conscience. #### 💬 Quote > They're out there to remove the bases of the dictator's support. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on strategic logic of nonviolent resistance #### 📚 Transcript **Erica Chenoweth:** The first factor is mass participation. So movements that win tend to be much and more diverse than movements that don't. And nonviolent campaigns tend to be able to elicit much larger and more diverse participation than armed campaigns. The second factor is the ability of the campaigns to divide and rule the opponent by shifting the loyalties of people within various pillars of support. So the larger the base becomes for a movement, the more likely it is that participants in the movement will have direct ties to people in the opponent's pillars of support, like economic and business elites, important politicians, civil servants, state media, different types of police or security forces or other authorities, local government and local authorities. And, you know, the more those connections begin to be embedded within the the more likely it is that the movement can maneuver in ways that begin to really shred the loyalties, you know, of people in those pillars of support. The third factor is the ability of movements to tactically innovate, especially moving away from mass demonstrations, rallies, and protests, and more into forms of non-cooperation, like strikes, stay at homes, and kind of undermining power for the opponent. And that's really the main thing, that these movements aren't out there to like melt the heart of the dictator, you know. They're out there to remove the bases of the dictator's support. So that's a really key distinction and I think is probably what leads a lot of people to think that nonviolent resistance campaigns are naive, is that they think they're trying to like the mind of a brutal dictator when they're not. They're trying to win a political fight among people who are neutral, who are kind of sympathetic to the regime but not actively supporting it, and certainly among people that are sympathetic to the movement but not actively supporting it. And then the fourth factor that seems to be really important is for the movement to be able to develop some kind of organizational resilience and discipline so that when or if repression escalates, that the movement is able continue to recruit, to continue to maneuver as it needs to without falling into disarray. --- ### [The 3.5 Percent Mobilization Rule](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e1b159be-5dc0-4ee3-9e45-ff3a5417e535) 🎧 43:22 - 45:09 (01:46) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d7628ea8-547d-4797-a892-d99b7b980fb4" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - A movement that mobilizes about 3.5% of the population essentially never fails. - Chenoweth cautions this counts active participants at peak and may reflect broader passive support beyond that 3.5%. #### 💬 Quote > None of the campaigns seem to have failed after mobilizing three and a half percent of the population. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on minimum mobilization needed for success #### 📚 Transcript **Erica Chenoweth:** Right. Maria, Stephan, and I analyzed about 323 cases of maximalist campaigns or revolutionary campaigns. And I found that none the campaigns seem to have failed after mobilizing three and a half percent of the population. And three and a half percent is a small number in relative terms, but very large in absolute terms. So in the United States, that's like 11 and a half million people. In China, it's many tens of millions of people. And so then we start to get a sense of the scale. **Shankar Vedantam:** It's worth pausing for a moment and sitting with that finding. Erica found that movements that mobilized about 3.5% of the population succeeded pretty much everywhere. But before you think it's easy to organize and execute a mass movement for change, Erica has a few caveats about that data point. That it only **Erica Chenoweth:** counts participation. It doesn't necessarily look at supporters of the movement or sympathizers with the movement. And so it can be easy to sort of conclude, I think, wrongly, that all you need is three and a half percent of the population on your side. Three and a half percent of the population actively mobilized at a sort of peak period are extremely unlikely to lose. But that could be because they have already elicited like 90 percent of the population support or, you know, something along those lines. So the way that I think about the three and a half percent rule is really more of a rule of thumb rather than an iron law. --- ### [Act Your Way Into Courage](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ca51c774-60fd-4583-bc2b-f95e14efc724) 🎧 53:56 - 01:02:27 (08:31) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/97e7f196-08e1-4177-8015-9322ea930b10" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Cultivate courage by acting and reflecting to build self-efficacy rather than waiting to feel brave. - Ranjay Gulati recommends 'acting your way into knowing' so mastery experiences update your identity as capable. #### 💬 Quote > When we act courageously in one domain...we become a braver person. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on self-efficacy and building courage #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** Ranjay joined us recently for two episodes on this topic. The first was titled U2.0, Cultivating Courage, and the second, on Hidden Brain Plus, was called U2.0, How to Help Others Be Brave. You can find both those episodes in this podcast feed. Today, Ranjie returns to the show to answer listener questions about this topic. Ranjie Gulati, welcome back to Hidden Brain. **Ranjay Gulati:** Thank you, Shankar. It's a pleasure to be back. One **Shankar Vedantam:** story that you cite, Ranjie, is of the Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny. Tell me his story. **Ranjay Gulati:** You know, Navalny is a kind of a very interesting story, and it follows a very interesting arc as well. You know, he starts as an lawyer, critical of power, but still within the system. And he then decides that he's really going to pivot from there into exposing corruption at the highest levels, you know, and he then becomes part of the opposition story here. And then things really ramp up for him. Arrest, harassment, assassination attempt. And, you know, with a very deadly poison, they evacuate him to Germany and miraculously they're able to save him. This was considered very unlikely, but he does. But really what is most interesting and actually in the end tragic is he returns back to Russia, knowing fully well that when he lands, they are likely to arrest him and he may not make it out alive after this. But he chooses to do that. What **Shankar Vedantam:** happens when he goes back? Well, **Ranjay Gulati:** he's arrested right at the airport, then transported to Siberia, put into one of the worst prisons over there, is in solitary for long periods of time, and ultimately he passes away over there. He's periodically allowed to meet people, and so there are recordings of him while he's there. even shortly before his death, he writes, he talks, and he's still making his point. He still wants to get the point out there that, listen, giving up is not an option. And it somehow fits into what we call the hero's journey. The hero leaves safety to serve a higher truth. And in this case, the hero's journey doesn't have to lead to a happy ending, but it does promise a meaningful ending, you know. And in this case, you know, you see, it's not like a victory for him, he succeeds, but it's kind of a moral ending, you know. He has made a choice that he is going to live his life in alignment with his beliefs and principles. And it is something that he will do even if it costs him his life. What I like about Hero's Journey and the whole idea there is that because it kind of normalizes fear and struggle. It tells us that doubt doesn't disqualify us. And transformation is possible, you know, you don't have to be perfect. And you don't even have to get it always right. But a moral overtone just makes it much more kind of compelling because you are now on a quest, you could be on a quest for physical endurance, you know, running, doing a cross country marathon of some sorts or some kind of, that is also a hero's journey, where challenge is a physical one, but others are, like a Navalny story, is one of a moral pursuit as well. You **Shankar Vedantam:** know, when I hear the word hero's journey, I think I was mistakenly focused on the word journey. You so Navalny, of course, travels a lot. He goes from one place to the other. Many stories of these epic journeys involve, you know, a warrior traveling from one place to the other. But really, the journey that is being described is an internal journey. It's the internal journey from someone who might have been hesitant or diffident to the discovery of one's own courage. That is the journey that is the hero's **Ranjay Gulati:** journey. In many instances, it's something about your own commitment to a set of values or principles that go beyond self-interest and a willingness to incur cost, no matter what that might be for that set of principles. People have also called this felt responsibility. You know, you somehow believe that this is such an important piece for you and that violating, violation of those values and principles feels more threatening than personal risk. And so instead of asking the question, then in the situation, instead of asking like, oh my God, what's the smartest or safest thing I can do here? You ask the question, what kind of person am I willing to be? Is it in alignment? You know, you saw that story about Australia where this storekeeper sees two people shooting into a crowd during a Hanukkah celebration. He said, I didn't have a choice. I had to do something. That's the person I am. And he got shot. You know, he may never fully recover. But for him, his personal belief about himself was more important to him than physical safety even. I want to play you a question **Shankar Vedantam:** from a listener that perhaps complicates one dimension of our account of a hero's journey. This message comes from listener Suzanne. Courage **Erica Chenoweth:** in my life has often not felt like a decision at all. It has felt like a kind of inner knowing that simply moved my body forward before my mind could argue. One moment stands out vividly. My son was only six months old. My husband and I were walking into a restaurant and I was holding my baby. I saw a very large man assaulting a very petite woman outside. I don't remember thinking at all. I simply handed my baby to my husband and said, please take him. Then I walked straight up to this man and told him very clearly to stop. I told someone else to call 911. The police came and the man was arrested. There was no planning, no courage **Shankar Vedantam:** narrative in my head. Something deeper moved me. I've learned that when we listen to that inner knowing, whether we call it intuition, conscience, or soul, we often discover we are capable of far more than we imagined. So, Ranjay, Suzanne tells us over and over that she didn't think through her actions, she just acted. Do you think it's possible that when we label someone's story as a hero's journey, we are doing that after the fact that in the moment, bravery may in fact be impulsive? Absolutely. **Ranjay Gulati:** You know, there is what you might call, you know, even in psychology, we talk about system one, the fast emotional response, and system two, that is a more slow and reflective response. And yes, it is true that some of our responses, the fight, flight, freeze response are automatic. And fight is one of the three. And somehow, sometimes, some things trigger us to fight because most of the time it is freeze or flee. But I would submit to you that, you know, clearly she felt a sense of outrage. And that, you know, while she may not have fully cognitively processed it, and she may have experienced it as instinctive, there was definitely a sense of outrage and a sense of empathy. So empathy for the recipient, we know, makes us more likely to take action. There are also conditions where nobody else is doing anything. So you realize that you are the only recourse over here. And so you choose to take action because of that. But to me, what is also interesting is her recounting of this story. When we have experiences like this, it's what we have also called mastery experiences. It's what we learn that sometimes you learn by acting and then reflecting. --- ### [Hero's Journey Frames Moral Courage](https://share.snipd.com/snip/07049250-a95c-4cd4-b8dc-59ab698250e9) 🎧 58:10 - 59:29 (01:18) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/dfecb0db-9232-42f3-842e-4672fef876aa" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Hero's journeys normalize fear and frame courage as commitment to values beyond self-interest. - Navalny returned despite mortal risk because living aligned with principles mattered more than personal safety. #### 💬 Quote > Instead of asking...what's the smartest or safest thing I can do here? You ask the question, what kind of person am I willing to be? > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on felt responsibility and moral courage #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** journey. In many instances, it's something about your own commitment to a set of values or principles that go beyond self-interest and a willingness to incur cost, no matter what that might be for that set of principles. People have also called this felt responsibility. You know, you somehow believe that this is such an important piece for you and that violating, violation of those values and principles feels more threatening than personal risk. And so instead of asking the question, then in the situation, instead of asking like, oh my God, what's the smartest or safest thing I can do here? You ask the question, what kind of person am I willing to be? Is it in alignment? You know, you saw that story about Australia where this storekeeper sees two people shooting into a crowd during a Hanukkah celebration. He said, I didn't have a choice. I had to do something. That's the person I am. And he got shot. You know, he may never fully recover. But for him, his personal belief about himself was more important to him than physical safety even. --- ### [Build Bravery Through Small Wins](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eee3cce3-c5a7-4966-95d7-c30134a407cf) 🎧 01:06:16 - 01:07:28 (01:12) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d6520260-9f5b-41b4-90bb-a961f12a4952" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Build a can-do mindset by taking small, brave actions that update your self-narrative. - Use self-perception: each courageous act increases confidence to face future challenges across domains. #### 💬 Quote > You don't just do a brave thing, you actually are becoming a braver person. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on self-efficacy spillover #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** self-efficacy was a term that famous Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura really put forward. And the idea was around that you have confidence in your own ability to take action. I think self-efficacy then transcends into a larger can-do mindset. I would call this the spillover effect. And there's really good research on this. Self-perception theory, for instance, suggests that we figure out who we are by watching what we do. And so when we act courageously in one domain, say taking up a new sport, you know, you prove to yourself that I'm somebody who can try hard things. And that travels with us into other aspects of what we do. So you don't just do a brave thing, you actually are becoming a braver person. Because you start to believe that self-belief you update in your own mind. The internal narrative that we have shifts from I avoid hard things to I'm someone who can face them. And so I firmly believe that people don't just do brave things. When they do, they become braver people. --- ### [Teach Courage With Guided Action Not Lectures](https://share.snipd.com/snip/94ad1d18-7c5f-43c2-82ac-6b9dd87375e5) 🎧 01:09:18 - 01:10:21 (01:02) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a1928384-cab9-43a2-9686-16ac130a0bcf" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Teach courage to children by guided action and reflection, not lectures. - Encourage controlled risks and avoid shaming fear; distinguish recklessness from courage by assessing risks and outcomes. #### 💬 Quote > We teach it by helping them act and then reflect. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on how to cultivate courage in children #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** I was scared of snakes. I'm not scared of snakes. Now, it's important to distinguish on the one extreme, when Aristotle wrote about courage, talked about cowardice at the one extreme and reckless at the other extreme. And courage was in the middle. So courage is about understanding the risks involved. What are the pros and cons of this action? You know, for the longest time, I was ashamed when I wasn't courageous. And I never understood this. And I've come to realize people aren't paralyzed by fear as much as they're paralyzed by the shame of having fear. And so I think it's important to understand for children to understand both one extreme, recklessness, which I think for many of them is a factor to think about. And the other one is not also to have shame. And how do we, I think this is an excellent question, that how do we get children to learn the act of courage? And it's about acting more than a lecture. --- ### [Trauma Creates Conditioned Fear That Can Be Retrained](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c132697d-ab52-46d9-816a-8ee244b82a7a) 🎧 01:14:53 - 01:17:04 (02:10) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/0d776649-0c81-43f8-9c2a-204a3198b7f1" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Traumatic encounters can create conditioned fear that leads to avoidance unless retrained by gradual exposure. - Gulati suggests controlled, incremental experiences to rebuild confidence after trauma like Brad's China incident. #### 💬 Quote > Conditioned fear is a learned nervous system response. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on conditioned fear after traumatic events #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** So, look, what we are experiencing, there's two parts to this story. I think it's a great story, and I'm really grateful that Brad decided to share this with us. You know, what he has described here is what has been called conditioned fear. Fear learned through experience rather than logic. Conditioned fear is a learned nervous system response. it's automatic, right? So the classic example of that is being bitten by a dog and then getting terrified of dogs. Or, you know, I watched the movie Jaws. Nothing happened to me, but I am so fearful of getting into the ocean after that. And what starts to happen when it's activated in the nervous system, the amygdala is firing up before conscious thought. So the body reacts first. And avoidance then reinforces the fear. And the way out of this is either you can let this fear amplify and paralyze your life, and maybe you're happy doing that. Or the other way is to retrain the nervous system. Right? Gradual controlled exposure. An adventure trip doesn't have to mean going through rural China on a bicycle by yourself. Right? Maybe there are smaller steps along the way where you can actually allow yourself the possibility of going on a guided tour, going to places that are safer. And what I've come to realize is that most of us are living our fears, not our dreams. And it's because we have sometimes these, you know, conditioned responses that then become kind of a guiding principle that, oh, I'm conditioned, I'm not going to do it. I would urge Brad to, you know, explore if there's ways to voluntarily and gradually engage with it. I'm not, I totally respect where he's coming from. By the way, what he's describing is normal. It's an absolutely normal human response. But I also think that learning, not the absence of fear, is really the seed of courage. --- ### [Acknowledge Risk To Avoid Recklessness](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e8c4c8ec-f8e4-471a-9390-9a56a8aefeb4) 🎧 01:29:24 - 01:32:07 (02:42) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/b6ff155d-800f-4210-a80b-0ee727c93758" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Distinguish bravery from recklessness by acknowledging risks before acting and choosing higher purpose over thrill. - Gulati separates risk (known probabilities) from uncertainty (unknowns) and warns uncertainty often paralyzes action. #### 💬 Quote > Bravery acknowledges the risk and chooses to act for a higher purpose. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on the line between bravery and recklessness #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** a defined line there. And what I would say the dividing line between those two is acknowledgement. Bravery acknowledges the risk and chooses to act for a higher purpose or other beliefs or other factors that propel you to consciously take action. Right? Recklessness, on the other hand, ignores or minimizes the risk, often for the thrill or out of negligence. Now, his going back into the water, if there are big signs saying there are sharks out right now, today is not a good day to be out there, and he still chooses to go out, I would say that's reckless, right? But if he's back out in an where there have been no sightings of sharks, it's completely clear that shows brave. And he has decided that he will not let that previous experience completely control his life. Now, he happens to have bad luck and there happens to be a shark that day. That's bad luck. But I think recklessness comes in where, you know what, I'm just going to go out anyway. I don't care. **Shankar Vedantam:** Yeah. Now, it's also the case, of course, that there are many situations where it's not clear what the risks are, right? So in other words, there's no sign that is posted. If you're dealing with, let's say, confronting an authoritarian regime, maybe you don't have signs saying, you know, your risk today is 25 percent, your risk today is 65 percent. Is it always possible to know what the risk is before venturing in, Ranjit? That's **Ranjay Gulati:** a great question. And, you know, in my book, actually, I a distinction between risk and uncertainty. You know, risk is where you know the probability of outcomes and you can put some numbers to it. the shark example is one of them. Signs saying shark sightings have happened. There are sharks in the area. Uncertainty is where we don't know. Where maybe you go into a remote place or a country where they don't track shark movements. And in these unknown, uncertainty comes in. And uncertainty actually is what really paralyzes the brain. That activates the fear impulse like nothing else. And then the question is, how do you choose to act or not act? There was a book called The Benefits of Fear, which said that fear is a survival impulse, don't ignore it, which I do agree with also. But I also think that we can't let it completely paralyze us because there's so much uncertainty in the world today. If you're going to succumb to all forms of uncertainty, you will never do anything. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts # Snips updated after 2026-04-05T10:16:17 ### [Nonviolent Resistance Beats Armed Insurgency](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3e76ab37-243c-4cf2-bff5-b536b8bfa045) 🎧 19:15 - 21:10 (01:55) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/3bd7b088-1c1c-457f-abf1-13eefdc8be2c" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent ones across 1900–2006 data. - Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan found nonviolent movements won ~50% of the time versus ~25% for armed resistance, surprising skeptics. #### 💬 Quote > The nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to have succeeded as their violent counterparts. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on comparative effectiveness of nonviolent campaigns #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** Erica and Maria began to analyze hundreds of cases of conflict and rebellion starting in the year 1900. Erica, I want to start by looking at some of the cases you and Maria examined. And let's start with this one. In October 2000, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the city of Belgrade. There were massive demonstrations calling for government reform. One evening in October, a large crowd gathered in front of the city's parliament building. They chanted, he's finished, he's finished. Who were they talking about? Well, they were talking about Slobodan Milosevic. **Erica Chenoweth:** One of his nicknames is the Butcher of the Balkans, who had stolen an election that had taken place in the previous weeks. And the movement that organized in advance of the election had expected Milosevic to lie about the results of the election and had set up these parallel vote tabulation and very well-organized kind of verification processes to demonstrate the fraud. So **Shankar Vedantam:** the Serbian organization was called Otpor, and Otpor really became famous for using humor and theatrics in their anti-Milosovic protests. One such campaign was called a dinar for change. Activists painted Milosevic's face on a barrel and placed it in front of the Belgrade National Theater. People who passed by could pay a small amount of money to then hit the painting with a bat. was like a game you play at a county fair. I want to play you a clip of one of the leaders, Sergei Popovich, explaining the strategy in a TED Talk. We **Ranjay Gulati:** put the big petrol barrel with a, you know, portrait picture of Mr. President on it. In the middle of the mainstream, there was a hole on the top. So you could literally come, put the coin in, get the baseball bat, and hit his face. --- ### [Otpor Used Humor To Unnervethe Regime](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f52911b1-c983-4a66-918b-91a4aa349e87) 🎧 19:28 - 25:54 (06:25) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1b83ed70-c599-4773-875b-da76c770fd4e" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Otpor in Serbia used humor and dilemma actions like a coin-in-a-barrel allowing people to smash Milosevic's face. - The tactic forced police into humiliating choices and helped expand participation to older citizens. #### 💬 Quote > People could pay a small amount of money to then hit the painting with a bat. > — Shankar Vedantam Shankar Vedantam describing Otpor's dinar for change action #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** In October 2000, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the city of Belgrade. There were massive demonstrations calling for government reform. One evening in October, a large crowd gathered in front of the city's parliament building. They chanted, he's finished, he's finished. Who were they talking about? Well, they were talking about Slobodan Milosevic. **Erica Chenoweth:** One of his nicknames is the Butcher of the Balkans, who had stolen an election that had taken place in the previous weeks. And the movement that organized in advance of the election had expected Milosevic to lie about the results of the election and had set up these parallel vote tabulation and very well-organized kind of verification processes to demonstrate the fraud. So **Shankar Vedantam:** the Serbian organization was called Otpor, and Otpor really became famous for using humor and theatrics in their anti-Milosovic protests. One such campaign was called a dinar for change. Activists painted Milosevic's face on a barrel and placed it in front of the Belgrade National Theater. People who passed by could pay a small amount of money to then hit the painting with a bat. It like a game you play at a county fair. I want to play you a clip of one of the leaders, Sergei Popovich, explaining the strategy in a TED Talk. We **Ranjay Gulati:** put the big petrol barrel with a, you know, portrait picture of Mr. President on it. In the middle of the mainstream, there was a hole on the top. So you could literally come, put the coin in, get the baseball bat, and hit his face. Sounds loud. We were sitting in a nearby cafe having coffee, and there was a clue of people waiting to do this lovely thing. Well, that's just the beginning of the show. The real show starts when the police appears. What they will do? Arrest the shoppers with kits? Doesn't make sense. Of course, you could bet, they've done the most stupid thing, they arrested the barrel. And now the picture of the smashed face on the barrel with the policeman drugging them to the police car, that was the best day for the photographers from newspapers that they ever will have. What **Erica Chenoweth:** was the effect of this campaign, Erika? There's no doubt that Otpor had a really important impact on opening people's minds to imagining a new future. One of the long-term legacies of that campaign was the different types of tactical innovations that were experimented with there. In particular, the type of method that Sergei was just describing is called a dilemma action. And a dilemma action is something that Otpor really perfected. The dilemma is, what do you do, right? So do you just leave it and ignore it? Then you have all of these people smashing Milosevic's face. Or do you arrest somebody, anybody who's there, create a scene? It would look illegitimate. Or do you put the barrel in the police car and then, you know, it's sort of this humiliating and absurd political theater. But it's a technique that is now used in a much more widespread way, I would think, because the logic of it is clearer to people. And the other thing, of course, is the humor. And humor is really important as a way to really poke at the invincibility kind of myth or narrative that exists among many different autocrats or autocratic movements. And so if there's one thing that we know that autocrats don't like, it's people laughing at them. One of my favorite vignettes comes from Morocco, where there is an independence movement in Western Sahara. And it's illegal to fly the colors of the flag of the independence movement. And there was a group of protesters who wanted to mobilize a flag, an illegal flag flying protest. And they announced in advance that this would be taking place so that the authorities would show up. But instead of themselves showing up to fly the flag, they basically rounded up a of stray cats and tied the flags onto their tails and then released them into a crowded area where then the riot police were like chasing them up and down narrow alleys and stuff. And this is a real dilemma action because it creates this like ludicrous scene of absurd political theater. But, you know, they also couldn't arrest anybody. Literally **Shankar Vedantam:** herding cats, huh? **Erica Chenoweth:** Exactly. Literally herding cats, but not able to really figure out who the real protest organizers were. **Shankar Vedantam:** So the Serbian police began to crack down on Odpur. They were arresting the protesters, many of whom were teenagers, and they were also calling the protesters terrorists. But increasingly, it wasn't just young people who were involved. Older people were getting increasingly drawn into the struggle. Why was that? Well, **Erica Chenoweth:** I think that the movement likely did a very good job of appealing to a wider and wider base of supporters. There was a period in which they were experiencing a pretty high degree of police repression. And I was told by one activist there that they began organizing something called grandparents protests, which is when they would ask their retired grandparents to come and march or demonstrate with them. And at those marches, they noticed the police were much less likely to start swinging their batons at the crowd. There was just a taboo against beating the elderly in public, and they exploited that taboo. And, by the way, also increased their numbers and the diversity of their campaign. **Shankar Vedantam:** What was the final outcome of the protest? Did it work? It **Erica Chenoweth:** did. Milosevic announced that he was retiring to spend more time with his grandson. He fled. He fled the square. And the movement effectively walked through the line of policemen who obviously were not going to fire on them anymore and occupied the parliament building. --- ### [Sudanese Strike Withheld Regime Cooperation](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f25d6fc6-cc44-4fa4-a4aa-55287c506503) 🎧 26:08 - 29:24 (03:15) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/741ce383-24be-49a4-ae5b-ded038304578" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Sudan's SPA combined mass protests with a general strike and stay-aways after the Khartoum massacre. - The general strike withheld cooperation from the junta and pressured them into negotiating a transition. #### 💬 Quote > Nobody's going to work until we have the opportunity to be at the table negotiating a peaceful transition to democracy. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on the Sudanese Professionals Association tactics #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** The country of Sudan was ruled for nearly 30 years by President Omar al-Bashir, who was a brutal dictator. He presided over the genocide in the Darfur region of southern Sudan in the early 2000s. Now, there were periodic uprisings over the years, but the security forces quickly suppressed them. But then in December 2018, protests erupted across the country after the government raised fuel and food prices. The demonstrations were organized by a group called the Sudanese Professionals Association. What were the techniques they used? One **Erica Chenoweth:** of the most important techniques that the SPA was able to organize en masse was a general strike and various other limited strikes and stay-aways. And stay-aways can be really important for movements that are facing brutal regimes because unlike mass demonstrations, they don't necessarily place people in positions of directly confronting the agents of repression. But in this case, there were also mass demonstrations, sit-ins, marches, protests. They used a really wide range of nonviolent methods in the course of that campaign. **Shankar Vedantam:** So soon after these protests really became widespread, al-Bashir was actually removed in a coup, and the Sudanese military established a military council. But the SBA kept protesting. They wanted the coup leaders to hand over power to the people and establish a democracy. And this led to something that's now known as the Khartoum massacre. What happened, Erica? **Erica Chenoweth:** Yeah, so what was happening there is that there was a massive sit-in outside of the military headquarters demanding that the civilians be represented in the new government and that a to democracy take place as soon as possible. And various security forces committed a mass atrocity. They killed and sexually assaulted and tortured over 100 people, some of whose bodies they dumped in the Nile River. And in the aftermath of that event, the SPA wisely, I think, called for a general strike and mass non-cooperation. And the reason I say it was incredibly wise and strategic is, again, it didn't necessarily put people in direct contact with those militias and security forces by calling for a massive 4 million strong demonstration, but instead say nobody's going to work until we have the opportunity to be at the table negotiating a peaceful transition to democracy. And it was a remarkably effective maneuver because not only did it help to keep people involved and engaged, but it also disrupted the day-to order of things so that the transitional junta didn't feel like it had a way out other than to work with some of the civilian representatives to negotiate an outcome. --- ### [Violence Alienates Potential Supporters](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cd707a96-4ab0-49fe-9e54-7dca3cdcfd1f) 🎧 30:48 - 32:55 (02:07) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a1b2bfad-e84d-470c-8ed2-e42fc32a09f0" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Episodes of violence by a largely nonviolent movement shrink public support, especially among sympathetic but unaffiliated citizens. - Spain's 15M saw average support drop ~12% after a turn to violence, harming expansion potential. #### 💬 Quote > The average support for the movement dropped by about 12% in the aftermath of that event. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on 15M movement violence effects #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** In May 2011, there was a wave of protests in Spain calling for socioeconomic reform. These were largely peaceful. The movement called itself 15M. It was named after May 15th, which is when these demonstrations began. People began occupying central squares in the main cities of Spain, and a large percentage of the public, about 65%, supported 15M. Can you tell me what happened in the course of these protests that caused some of them to turn violent, and the effects of this turn on public opinion? **Erica Chenoweth:** Basically, there was an episode in which some of the protesters were provoked into using violence in one way or the other. And there were a couple of social scientists who had been conducting surveys on opinions toward the movement before that event took place, and then they were able to do surveys after that event took place as well. And what they found is that the average support for the movement dropped by about 12% in the aftermath of that event. And the findings were qualified somewhat in the sense that among people who already were very supportive of the movement, there wasn't a very large drop in support. But among people who were kind of adjacent to the movement politically, who were sympathetic to the movement before, or who were kind of not affiliated with the movement in any way, there was a much bigger decline in support. So in other words, the episode of violence tended to have very little effect on base solidarity, but it had a pretty big effect on alienating potential third-party supporters of the movement that would have allowed it to expand its base. And so I think the key takeaway of that study is that these types of incidents can be really risky for movements that are trying to expand their base of supporters. And expanding the base of supporters is one of the key things that nonviolent resistance campaigns need to do to win. --- ### [Why Nonviolent Campaigns Win Strategically](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ec9b06a6-5a76-44f7-8426-38156071aae4) 🎧 40:00 - 42:34 (02:33) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d3462508-9a74-4f8d-877a-425d80db6a5a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Four mechanisms explain nonviolent success: mass participation, shifting regime loyalties, tactical innovation, and organizational resilience. - Nonviolent tactics like strikes and stay-aways remove pillars of regime support rather than appealing to a dictator's conscience. #### 💬 Quote > They're out there to remove the bases of the dictator's support. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on strategic logic of nonviolent resistance #### 📚 Transcript **Erica Chenoweth:** The first factor is mass participation. So movements that win tend to be much and more diverse than movements that don't. And nonviolent campaigns tend to be able to elicit much larger and more diverse participation than armed campaigns. The second factor is the ability of the campaigns to divide and rule the opponent by shifting the loyalties of people within various pillars of support. So the larger the base becomes for a movement, the more likely it is that participants in the movement will have direct ties to people in the opponent's pillars of support, like economic and business elites, important politicians, civil servants, state media, different types of police or security forces or other authorities, local government and local authorities. And, you know, the more those connections begin to be embedded within the the more likely it is that the movement can maneuver in ways that begin to really shred the loyalties, you know, of people in those pillars of support. The third factor is the ability of movements to tactically innovate, especially moving away from mass demonstrations, rallies, and protests, and more into forms of non-cooperation, like strikes, stay at homes, and kind of undermining power for the opponent. And that's really the main thing, that these movements aren't out there to like melt the heart of the dictator, you know. They're out there to remove the bases of the dictator's support. So that's a really key distinction and I think is probably what leads a lot of people to think that nonviolent resistance campaigns are naive, is that they think they're trying to like the mind of a brutal dictator when they're not. They're trying to win a political fight among people who are neutral, who are kind of sympathetic to the regime but not actively supporting it, and certainly among people that are sympathetic to the movement but not actively supporting it. And then the fourth factor that seems to be really important is for the movement to be able to develop some kind of organizational resilience and discipline so that when or if repression escalates, that the movement is able continue to recruit, to continue to maneuver as it needs to without falling into disarray. --- ### [The 3.5 Percent Mobilization Rule](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e1b159be-5dc0-4ee3-9e45-ff3a5417e535) 🎧 43:22 - 45:09 (01:46) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d7628ea8-547d-4797-a892-d99b7b980fb4" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - A movement that mobilizes about 3.5% of the population essentially never fails. - Chenoweth cautions this counts active participants at peak and may reflect broader passive support beyond that 3.5%. #### 💬 Quote > None of the campaigns seem to have failed after mobilizing three and a half percent of the population. > — Erica Chenoweth Erica Chenoweth on minimum mobilization needed for success #### 📚 Transcript **Erica Chenoweth:** Right. Maria, Stephan, and I analyzed about 323 cases of maximalist campaigns or revolutionary campaigns. And I found that none the campaigns seem to have failed after mobilizing three and a half percent of the population. And three and a half percent is a small number in relative terms, but very large in absolute terms. So in the United States, that's like 11 and a half million people. In China, it's many tens of millions of people. And so then we start to get a sense of the scale. **Shankar Vedantam:** It's worth pausing for a moment and sitting with that finding. Erica found that movements that mobilized about 3.5% of the population succeeded pretty much everywhere. But before you think it's easy to organize and execute a mass movement for change, Erica has a few caveats about that data point. That it only **Erica Chenoweth:** counts participation. It doesn't necessarily look at supporters of the movement or sympathizers with the movement. And so it can be easy to sort of conclude, I think, wrongly, that all you need is three and a half percent of the population on your side. Three and a half percent of the population actively mobilized at a sort of peak period are extremely unlikely to lose. But that could be because they have already elicited like 90 percent of the population support or, you know, something along those lines. So the way that I think about the three and a half percent rule is really more of a rule of thumb rather than an iron law. --- ### [Act Your Way Into Courage](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ca51c774-60fd-4583-bc2b-f95e14efc724) 🎧 53:56 - 01:02:27 (08:31) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/97e7f196-08e1-4177-8015-9322ea930b10" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Cultivate courage by acting and reflecting to build self-efficacy rather than waiting to feel brave. - Ranjay Gulati recommends 'acting your way into knowing' so mastery experiences update your identity as capable. #### 💬 Quote > When we act courageously in one domain...we become a braver person. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on self-efficacy and building courage #### 📚 Transcript **Shankar Vedantam:** Ranjay joined us recently for two episodes on this topic. The first was titled U2.0, Cultivating Courage, and the second, on Hidden Brain Plus, was called U2.0, How to Help Others Be Brave. You can find both those episodes in this podcast feed. Today, Ranjie returns to the show to answer listener questions about this topic. Ranjie Gulati, welcome back to Hidden Brain. **Ranjay Gulati:** Thank you, Shankar. It's a pleasure to be back. One **Shankar Vedantam:** story that you cite, Ranjie, is of the Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny. Tell me his story. **Ranjay Gulati:** You know, Navalny is a kind of a very interesting story, and it follows a very interesting arc as well. You know, he starts as an lawyer, critical of power, but still within the system. And he then decides that he's really going to pivot from there into exposing corruption at the highest levels, you know, and he then becomes part of the opposition story here. And then things really ramp up for him. Arrest, harassment, assassination attempt. And, you know, with a very deadly poison, they evacuate him to Germany and miraculously they're able to save him. This was considered very unlikely, but he does. But really what is most interesting and actually in the end tragic is he returns back to Russia, knowing fully well that when he lands, they are likely to arrest him and he may not make it out alive after this. But he chooses to do that. What **Shankar Vedantam:** happens when he goes back? Well, **Ranjay Gulati:** he's arrested right at the airport, then transported to Siberia, put into one of the worst prisons over there, is in solitary for long periods of time, and ultimately he passes away over there. He's periodically allowed to meet people, and so there are recordings of him while he's there. even shortly before his death, he writes, he talks, and he's still making his point. He still wants to get the point out there that, listen, giving up is not an option. And it somehow fits into what we call the hero's journey. The hero leaves safety to serve a higher truth. And in this case, the hero's journey doesn't have to lead to a happy ending, but it does promise a meaningful ending, you know. And in this case, you know, you see, it's not like a victory for him, he succeeds, but it's kind of a moral ending, you know. He has made a choice that he is going to live his life in alignment with his beliefs and principles. And it is something that he will do even if it costs him his life. What I like about Hero's Journey and the whole idea there is that because it kind of normalizes fear and struggle. It tells us that doubt doesn't disqualify us. And transformation is possible, you know, you don't have to be perfect. And you don't even have to get it always right. But a moral overtone just makes it much more kind of compelling because you are now on a quest, you could be on a quest for physical endurance, you know, running, doing a cross country marathon of some sorts or some kind of, that is also a hero's journey, where challenge is a physical one, but others are, like a Navalny story, is one of a moral pursuit as well. You **Shankar Vedantam:** know, when I hear the word hero's journey, I think I was mistakenly focused on the word journey. You so Navalny, of course, travels a lot. He goes from one place to the other. Many stories of these epic journeys involve, you know, a warrior traveling from one place to the other. But really, the journey that is being described is an internal journey. It's the internal journey from someone who might have been hesitant or diffident to the discovery of one's own courage. That is the journey that is the hero's **Ranjay Gulati:** journey. In many instances, it's something about your own commitment to a set of values or principles that go beyond self-interest and a willingness to incur cost, no matter what that might be for that set of principles. People have also called this felt responsibility. You know, you somehow believe that this is such an important piece for you and that violating, violation of those values and principles feels more threatening than personal risk. And so instead of asking the question, then in the situation, instead of asking like, oh my God, what's the smartest or safest thing I can do here? You ask the question, what kind of person am I willing to be? Is it in alignment? You know, you saw that story about Australia where this storekeeper sees two people shooting into a crowd during a Hanukkah celebration. He said, I didn't have a choice. I had to do something. That's the person I am. And he got shot. You know, he may never fully recover. But for him, his personal belief about himself was more important to him than physical safety even. I want to play you a question **Shankar Vedantam:** from a listener that perhaps complicates one dimension of our account of a hero's journey. This message comes from listener Suzanne. Courage **Erica Chenoweth:** in my life has often not felt like a decision at all. It has felt like a kind of inner knowing that simply moved my body forward before my mind could argue. One moment stands out vividly. My son was only six months old. My husband and I were walking into a restaurant and I was holding my baby. I saw a very large man assaulting a very petite woman outside. I don't remember thinking at all. I simply handed my baby to my husband and said, please take him. Then I walked straight up to this man and told him very clearly to stop. I told someone else to call 911. The police came and the man was arrested. There was no planning, no courage **Shankar Vedantam:** narrative in my head. Something deeper moved me. I've learned that when we listen to that inner knowing, whether we call it intuition, conscience, or soul, we often discover we are capable of far more than we imagined. So, Ranjay, Suzanne tells us over and over that she didn't think through her actions, she just acted. Do you think it's possible that when we label someone's story as a hero's journey, we are doing that after the fact that in the moment, bravery may in fact be impulsive? Absolutely. **Ranjay Gulati:** You know, there is what you might call, you know, even in psychology, we talk about system one, the fast emotional response, and system two, that is a more slow and reflective response. And yes, it is true that some of our responses, the fight, flight, freeze response are automatic. And fight is one of the three. And somehow, sometimes, some things trigger us to fight because most of the time it is freeze or flee. But I would submit to you that, you know, clearly she felt a sense of outrage. And that, you know, while she may not have fully cognitively processed it, and she may have experienced it as instinctive, there was definitely a sense of outrage and a sense of empathy. So empathy for the recipient, we know, makes us more likely to take action. There are also conditions where nobody else is doing anything. So you realize that you are the only recourse over here. And so you choose to take action because of that. But to me, what is also interesting is her recounting of this story. When we have experiences like this, it's what we have also called mastery experiences. It's what we learn that sometimes you learn by acting and then reflecting. --- ### [Hero's Journey Frames Moral Courage](https://share.snipd.com/snip/07049250-a95c-4cd4-b8dc-59ab698250e9) 🎧 58:10 - 59:29 (01:18) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/dfecb0db-9232-42f3-842e-4672fef876aa" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Hero's journeys normalize fear and frame courage as commitment to values beyond self-interest. - Navalny returned despite mortal risk because living aligned with principles mattered more than personal safety. #### 💬 Quote > Instead of asking...what's the smartest or safest thing I can do here? You ask the question, what kind of person am I willing to be? > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on felt responsibility and moral courage #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** journey. In many instances, it's something about your own commitment to a set of values or principles that go beyond self-interest and a willingness to incur cost, no matter what that might be for that set of principles. People have also called this felt responsibility. You know, you somehow believe that this is such an important piece for you and that violating, violation of those values and principles feels more threatening than personal risk. And so instead of asking the question, then in the situation, instead of asking like, oh my God, what's the smartest or safest thing I can do here? You ask the question, what kind of person am I willing to be? Is it in alignment? You know, you saw that story about Australia where this storekeeper sees two people shooting into a crowd during a Hanukkah celebration. He said, I didn't have a choice. I had to do something. That's the person I am. And he got shot. You know, he may never fully recover. But for him, his personal belief about himself was more important to him than physical safety even. --- ### [Build Bravery Through Small Wins](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eee3cce3-c5a7-4966-95d7-c30134a407cf) 🎧 01:06:16 - 01:07:28 (01:12) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/d6520260-9f5b-41b4-90bb-a961f12a4952" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Build a can-do mindset by taking small, brave actions that update your self-narrative. - Use self-perception: each courageous act increases confidence to face future challenges across domains. #### 💬 Quote > You don't just do a brave thing, you actually are becoming a braver person. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on self-efficacy spillover #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** self-efficacy was a term that famous Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura really put forward. And the idea was around that you have confidence in your own ability to take action. I think self-efficacy then transcends into a larger can-do mindset. I would call this the spillover effect. And there's really good research on this. Self-perception theory, for instance, suggests that we figure out who we are by watching what we do. And so when we act courageously in one domain, say taking up a new sport, you know, you prove to yourself that I'm somebody who can try hard things. And that travels with us into other aspects of what we do. So you don't just do a brave thing, you actually are becoming a braver person. Because you start to believe that self-belief you update in your own mind. The internal narrative that we have shifts from I avoid hard things to I'm someone who can face them. And so I firmly believe that people don't just do brave things. When they do, they become braver people. --- ### [Teach Courage With Guided Action Not Lectures](https://share.snipd.com/snip/94ad1d18-7c5f-43c2-82ac-6b9dd87375e5) 🎧 01:09:18 - 01:10:21 (01:02) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a1928384-cab9-43a2-9686-16ac130a0bcf" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Teach courage to children by guided action and reflection, not lectures. - Encourage controlled risks and avoid shaming fear; distinguish recklessness from courage by assessing risks and outcomes. #### 💬 Quote > We teach it by helping them act and then reflect. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on how to cultivate courage in children #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** I was scared of snakes. I'm not scared of snakes. Now, it's important to distinguish on the one extreme, when Aristotle wrote about courage, talked about cowardice at the one extreme and reckless at the other extreme. And courage was in the middle. So courage is about understanding the risks involved. What are the pros and cons of this action? You know, for the longest time, I was ashamed when I wasn't courageous. And I never understood this. And I've come to realize people aren't paralyzed by fear as much as they're paralyzed by the shame of having fear. And so I think it's important to understand for children to understand both one extreme, recklessness, which I think for many of them is a factor to think about. And the other one is not also to have shame. And how do we, I think this is an excellent question, that how do we get children to learn the act of courage? And it's about acting more than a lecture. --- ### [Trauma Creates Conditioned Fear That Can Be Retrained](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c132697d-ab52-46d9-816a-8ee244b82a7a) 🎧 01:14:53 - 01:17:04 (02:10) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/0d776649-0c81-43f8-9c2a-204a3198b7f1" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Traumatic encounters can create conditioned fear that leads to avoidance unless retrained by gradual exposure. - Gulati suggests controlled, incremental experiences to rebuild confidence after trauma like Brad's China incident. #### 💬 Quote > Conditioned fear is a learned nervous system response. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on conditioned fear after traumatic events #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** So, look, what we are experiencing, there's two parts to this story. I think it's a great story, and I'm really grateful that Brad decided to share this with us. You know, what he has described here is what has been called conditioned fear. Fear learned through experience rather than logic. Conditioned fear is a learned nervous system response. it's automatic, right? So the classic example of that is being bitten by a dog and then getting terrified of dogs. Or, you know, I watched the movie Jaws. Nothing happened to me, but I am so fearful of getting into the ocean after that. And what starts to happen when it's activated in the nervous system, the amygdala is firing up before conscious thought. So the body reacts first. And avoidance then reinforces the fear. And the way out of this is either you can let this fear amplify and paralyze your life, and maybe you're happy doing that. Or the other way is to retrain the nervous system. Right? Gradual controlled exposure. An adventure trip doesn't have to mean going through rural China on a bicycle by yourself. Right? Maybe there are smaller steps along the way where you can actually allow yourself the possibility of going on a guided tour, going to places that are safer. And what I've come to realize is that most of us are living our fears, not our dreams. And it's because we have sometimes these, you know, conditioned responses that then become kind of a guiding principle that, oh, I'm conditioned, I'm not going to do it. I would urge Brad to, you know, explore if there's ways to voluntarily and gradually engage with it. I'm not, I totally respect where he's coming from. By the way, what he's describing is normal. It's an absolutely normal human response. But I also think that learning, not the absence of fear, is really the seed of courage. --- ### [Acknowledge Risk To Avoid Recklessness](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e8c4c8ec-f8e4-471a-9390-9a56a8aefeb4) 🎧 01:29:24 - 01:32:07 (02:42) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/b6ff155d-800f-4210-a80b-0ee727c93758" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Distinguish bravery from recklessness by acknowledging risks before acting and choosing higher purpose over thrill. - Gulati separates risk (known probabilities) from uncertainty (unknowns) and warns uncertainty often paralyzes action. #### 💬 Quote > Bravery acknowledges the risk and chooses to act for a higher purpose. > — Ranjay Gulati Ranjay Gulati on the line between bravery and recklessness #### 📚 Transcript **Ranjay Gulati:** a defined line there. And what I would say the dividing line between those two is acknowledgement. Bravery acknowledges the risk and chooses to act for a higher purpose or other beliefs or other factors that propel you to consciously take action. Right? Recklessness, on the other hand, ignores or minimizes the risk, often for the thrill or out of negligence. Now, his going back into the water, if there are big signs saying there are sharks out right now, today is not a good day to be out there, and he still chooses to go out, I would say that's reckless, right? But if he's back out in an where there have been no sightings of sharks, it's completely clear that shows brave. And he has decided that he will not let that previous experience completely control his life. Now, he happens to have bad luck and there happens to be a shark that day. That's bad luck. But I think recklessness comes in where, you know what, I'm just going to go out anyway. I don't care. **Shankar Vedantam:** Yeah. Now, it's also the case, of course, that there are many situations where it's not clear what the risks are, right? So in other words, there's no sign that is posted. If you're dealing with, let's say, confronting an authoritarian regime, maybe you don't have signs saying, you know, your risk today is 25 percent, your risk today is 65 percent. Is it always possible to know what the risk is before venturing in, Ranjit? That's **Ranjay Gulati:** a great question. And, you know, in my book, actually, I a distinction between risk and uncertainty. You know, risk is where you know the probability of outcomes and you can put some numbers to it. the shark example is one of them. Signs saying shark sightings have happened. There are sharks in the area. Uncertainty is where we don't know. Where maybe you go into a remote place or a country where they don't track shark movements. And in these unknown, uncertainty comes in. And uncertainty actually is what really paralyzes the brain. That activates the fear impulse like nothing else. And then the question is, how do you choose to act or not act? There was a book called The Benefits of Fear, which said that fear is a survival impulse, don't ignore it, which I do agree with also. But I also think that we can't let it completely paralyze us because there's so much uncertainty in the world today. If you're going to succumb to all forms of uncertainty, you will never do anything. ---