In this post, we want to discuss one of the most subtle ways of exerting power. This way of exerting power often leads to people saying, "This is how things are; we just need to accept it." Note that we are not criticizing anything, just observing neutrally how things are.
We start by observing how Nature exerts its power over us. Nature exerts its power over us through its laws. For example, if we jump from a tall mountain, the law of gravity ensures that we die. If we go into the cold without being sufficiently dressed for a long time, Nature exerts its power using the laws of thermodynamics and ensures that we die of hypothermia. We observe that Nature exerts its power over us by setting the context in which we operate. It sets the context via the laws that we must abide by if we want to exist. In addition, its laws make sure that we have the will to exist.
Similar to Nature is how different groups, institutions, societal constructs, etc., exert power as well. The context set by these institutions determines how their members behave. For example, the laws of capitalism set the context in which a CEO operates. When inaugurating a product, they need to make sure that they don’t point out the shortcomings of the product they are trying to sell; the laws ensure that they work within that context.
A researcher works in a similar way with regard to research, they need to work while keeping in mind the funding agency that’s funding their research and sell their research like a CEO selling a product. Research, however, cannot have any emotional component; it just has to be understood neutrally like a law. Selling research, however, does, it is subservient to the laws of capitalism. So wherever there is a conflict between the laws of capitalism and the laws of Nature, the researcher needs to leverage the emotions, and thus the cognitive biases, of the audience to sell the research.
Sometimes the laws that set the context are unspoken, like in the case of a group of friends. Those laws decide what is polite behavior, what subjects are too sensitive to be spoken about, what causes need to be supported, etc. These unspoken rules are referred to as context.
The entity that creates the laws, spoken and unspoken, sets the context in which the members operate and exerts power over them. We say that this is a subtle way of exerting power because many times, the entity's influence can be so expansive that the members can say nothing but, "This is how things work.". Note that the entity could be an individual, a group of people such as a committee, or even an abstraction like greed.