Updated 20 October 2026 22:35
Does social change happen “top down” or “bottom up”—brought about by those who hold power or by those who struggle against the powerful?
In “Street Knowledge,” Darien Pollock argues that the most powerful change comes from the bottom up.
“Street culture” supplies the creative activity that inspires not only political change but any kind of positive social change.
Pollock argues that part of what prevents progressive social change is that people in power only legitimize and respond to ideas and arguments that are legible to them; marginal actors — those with street knowledge — are forced to develop ways of making ideas that are illegible to the broader public meaningful and useful.