Powermongery
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Powermongery is the deliberate exploitation of ignorance and skeptiphobia (reluctance to think critically) within a population as a means of gaining personal power.
It is closely related to fearmongery, as powermongery almost always involves incitement of irrational fear, though powermongery can also involve promise of (unlikely or impossible) reward as a "carrot" to balance the "stick" of fear.
Examples
In right-wing Christian mythology, the threat of "eternal damnation" or "eternal torment" in "Hell" is held out as an unimaginably bad consequence for failure to obey certain dictates, while the distant promise of "Heaven" is sometimes offered as a possible reward for those who obey those dictates with sufficient fervor.
Related
- emotional wedge: a technique often used by powermongers
Outlinks
Reference
News
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- 2008-01-16 [Talk|Index] To Lead the Masses § [2]“Germany's most influential political think tank is demanding the comprehensive disempowerment of smaller EU member states in questions of foreign and security policy, as shown by the newly published strategy report of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The report promotes "Europe's" development of global power and contains numerous suggestions for the EU's formation, including the demand to establish an "EU Security Council" to supervise all of the EU's security policies. Only those seven countries with the largest military budgets will be permanent members.”
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