Reading the article on Charles Duhigg was really eye-opening. Duhigg explores how strong relationships combined with more distant connections, have power to mobilize large groups towards one large, underlying goal. The way he refers to the connection of these relationships is through “strong and weak ties”. Duhigg uses text-to-world visuals throughout the passage to convey how these ties connect.

Duhigg speaks about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. There were many people before Rosa Parks who refused to stand up on the bus for the whites because they have priority, and those people didn’t create societal change. However since Parks had such a strong tie and devoted much work into her community throughout community service and such, she was the individual that started to create change, or better known as the start of the Civil Rights Movement. This situation similarly connects to Anne Hallward, and the idea of how one story can lead to a whole society to stand up and act out to create change, or as Duhigg says “a single act of defiance can change the world (87).” Duhigg believes that a movement starts because of the socials habits of friendships and the strong ties between close acquaintances. It begins to grow and develop more because of the habits of a community, including the weak ties that hold neighbors together. This endures because a movements leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and feeling of ownership. Duhigg really displays how it takes both strong and weak ties to create a movement for societal change.

This is just one example that was in Duhiggs literature. He also talked about how the connection between relationships and strong/weak ties are not only vital when helping to create societal change, but also in accomplishing goals, too.