Coercion
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- Actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person; the act of coercing.
- Use of physical or moral force to compel a person to do something, or to abstain from doing something, thereby depriving that person of the exercise of free will.
Coercion is the practice of compelling a person or manipulating them to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. These are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical pain/injury or psychological harm in order to enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further harm may then lead to the cooperation or obedience of the person being coerced. Torture is one of the most extreme examples of coercion i.e. severe pain is inflicted on victims until they give interrogators the desired information.
The term is associated with circumstances which involve the unethical use of threats or harm to achieve some objective, but maybe equally often applies to other means of influence such as sweet talking, begging, charming, lying, and seduction. It may serve as a form of justification for a conclusion in a logical fallacy or non-logical argument.
