The radical claim here isn't that words matter—everyone accepts that. Rather, Schulman is insisting that *ideas themselves*, not money or armies or institutions, possess transformative power. Notice the deliberate pushback: "No matter what anybody tells you." He's acknowledging that we're surrounded by people who've grown cynical, who've learned to believe only in tangible leverage, and he's refusing that surrender. When a high school teacher rewrites a curriculum to center voices previously ignored, or when a single op-ed shifts how millions think about a social problem, we see this principle in action—not because someone had resources or authority, but because an idea found the right words to make people *see differently*.