ABSTRACT
I thought about this when I lately came across a mug inscribed with the following remark, which it attributed to Margaret Mead: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.’ It struck me at once that this was a mug badly at odds with current thinking; indeed, it cannot lately have been attending to the media as an educated mug should. These days, the message that we chiefly hear is that changes in the world are due to something on a much larger scale – perhaps economic causes, perhaps a shift in the gene pool, perhaps cultural evolution – certainly something far grander than a few people worrying in an attic. Is the mug therefore wrong?
