“What other people think”

In The Atlantic, Betsy Levy Paluck writes about “The Most Overlooked Value of Political Protest” (gift link):

Politics is a challenge for human coordination. People want to participate in political action only if others do as well. Those who believe in self-governance must signal to other people that they wish to participate, that they believe in one form of politics or another. We must watch one another — not just through social media or a news channel — to learn what we believe. And we must be willing to speak up ourselves. This is the way to form common knowledge about what other Americans truly think and want. And this is the under-
appreciated value of protests. To paraphrase the political scientist Diana Mutz: they don’t tell us what to think, but they tell us what other people think.

I’m reminded of how cheered I was to see a number of unexpected faces at our No Kings Day gathering. As Dante said to Brunetto Latini, “Are you here?”