Change
They say that nothing is constant except change. Changes are indeed unwelcoming, especially when people are on the losing side of the proposed change. Participants need not be afraid of change so long as it is tenable through the lens of science, logic or pragmatism. Changes also take time and any attempts of change must respect this nature. Changes can only be accelerated when all participants accept the change and dedicate themselves to it. Otherwise, attempts to force a change will backfire.
A nature of change is that its campaign can inadvertently transform itself to an extreme and destructive form of itself. This can be seen in almost all campaigns of change: the modern campaign for women's right inadvertently becoming anti-men, the campaign for democracy fuelling illogical views of democracy, the campaign for rights fuelling idiotic definitions of rights, the campaign to fix the shortcomings of the right wing politics giving birth to irrational far left ideas making the right wing better, etc.
This nature is largely for two reasons: the resistance to change raising the strength of the movements, and certain elements in the campaign that propose an extreme form of the change. This is why hyper sensitive activists must not be en-tasked with taking the issues of progress forward. Throughout recent history, every attempts of positive change has been insulted and derailed by a set of activists within itself, who twisted the goals of movements and adopted extreme versions of the ideology so much so that the movement made no sense at all, and the public withdrew their support.
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Another nature of change is that most of them can be achieved only by utilising the current system itself — the same system the is to be changed. Often, this is seen as an act of hypocrisy and open an attack vector for adversaries. Climate change scientists using fossil fuel based energy to power their research is an example. The reason for this nature, however, not hypocrisy or double standard, but the inertia of the existing system. When we are dependent on one system to run things, we are dependent on the same system to drive change too.
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The third nature of change lies in who we are loyalty to — the ideology fuelling the change or the organisation taking the change forward?. You see, systemic changes can happen only collectively, spear headed by entities such as non-profit organisations, companies, political parties, institutions, or any such group that are anchored on the values or principles of that change. Our commitment to change is manifested as commitment and co-operation with these groups, making it practical for us to contribute.
However, because these entities are run by numerous people, each with their flaws and biases, it is possible that they go astray from the original path. Here is where the allegiance of participants come in play. Is it to the ideology or the group?
The allegiance of the participants must be to the underlying ideology instead of the group formed upon it. If not, the group is unable to correct itself when gone astray. Such misplaced allegiances will protect the leaders of the group from prosecution and accountability, and the group will gradually sway irrevocably from its foundation: the ideology it was built upon. Only unfettered allegiance to the ideology can ensure that people can swerve the group back to righteousness if and when it goes rogue.
The catch is that public display of your allegiance to the ideology can result in self-destruction, especially in domains such as politics. Also, upon admission of a mistake by a party member or elected representative, they are attacked viciously for being wrong by the opposition, narratives are created upon this admission and an entire campaign can be designed on it. In other words, in certain systems such as democracy, it is self-destructive to openly admit mistakes. You can only afford to admit and correct yourselves in silence. However it is done, what matters for social progress is the correction, not its publicity.
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The fourth nature of change is that campaigns are vulnerable to false information. False information manifests in two ways: fake news and fake narratives. Fake news are focused on singular incidents, attack our perception of a particular event, and therefore are ephemeral.
Meanwhile, fake narratives are built by cumulating several fake news, attack our opinion of a larger entity, and therefore lasts way longer than fake news. A lasting impression will be reinforced in the mind until the person starts questioning. And if the attack is organised properly, fake narratives can induce tribalism among the masses, create an echo chamber and influence their choice of news, articles and publications, which further reinforces the narrative in their mind. Minds enslaved to narratives can be comfortably exploited without much effort or conscious realisation. Therefore, fake narratives are more destructive than fake news.
Critical and unbiased thinking is essential to decide which side of change are you on — the status quo, change x or change y. Whichever side you have chosen, you must then establish a robust information warfare infrastructure to counter fake news and false narratives. There world runs on information. There is no survival without weaponising it.