Controlling a Society; Behind the Curtain

Mind you that extremism is always welcome :)

Just to clarify ( and to prevent the inclusion of semantics)
here are the definitions:

Essential: what is absolutely necessary (aka. in any circumstances)
Society: a community of people living in a particular country or region and having shared customs, laws, and organizations
Power: Physical ( more or less authoritative) Control
Money: Vast Economic capital.
Intelligence: Simply knowledge. ( aka smarter is assumed to be a form of knowledge )
Trust: unquestioned belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something

Control: The ability to manipulate ( to a large degree) of the physical, economical, and psychological
aspects of the society and its members.

* NOTE *: The def. of control can be interpreted in many ways; which is acceptable.
(The question therefore encompasses all of the interpretations)

Please state your essential tool, and/or explain why you think neither of options given are applicable.
Or why it would be impossible to do so.

Good luck!

Controlling a society against their will, or controlling them for so long that they just accept it, is dictatorship.

To get there in the first place you need to earn the trust of the people to "vote you in", then you have the power to do what you like with the country's resources. Militaristic dictators use fear and violence to stay at the top, threatening your own citizens with torture or harsh punishments when they step out of line and threatening other countries with war if they intervene.

Unless I've missed the point entirely and you're talking about shit like the Illuminati.

I must say Trust, with Trust a Dictator could take his kingdom to Hell and Back(Though that might be a little painful). My point being with Absolute Trust their is no end to the possibilities that can be done.

I would not say you missed the point.
You simply chose your own def. of control, which is entirely acceptable.

Since my description of control was vague, it can be interpreted in different ways.
In a simple sense there are actually different 'types' of "control".

How to control a society? Allow me to quote Niccolo Machiavelli



Look at every dictatorship around the world. The people are lead to believe that their ruler is the only person capable of governing them. Kim Jong-il was literally worshiped by his people (if you believer their media).

You can look at the events surround Bush Jr's administration. The American people gave into fear of terrorism so they allowed the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act to be passed. They allowed to president to declare an unconstitutional war on not a foreign nation but, an ideology. The fear of the American people allowed them to believe the delusional concept of "if we kill enough of them, the fighting will stop" Their fear allowed the president and congress to strip away nearly every single right they ever had because of fear.

NDAA is set to pass because some people are scared of the possibility of dying to boogeyman.

The bank and car manufacturer bailouts all stemmed from the fear of an economic collapse.

To control a society you need fear. Fear of punishment or fear of being left to fend for themselves without their benevolent leader. Fear is power, it is control.

I believe Intelligence will always be the key factor in how far
you can control people. I mean there will always be those idiots that can only be manipulated by fear and power through the first stages of the society, but later on after bringing in more people, second and right hands, it will be their job to take care of those idiots and it takes a lot more than fear to get their knees to buckle, whats stopping them from raping your ass if they know they can do a better job of running things than you.

I've always thought of a secret society in the context of one thing:

Revolution

and we all know, Revolution always begins in the mind of the Revolutionary :)

man, I was gonna quote him, oh well, saved me the trouble.

fear controls people, but one must be very careful to avoid being hated. fear is easy to achieve, hard to lose, and very powerful.

the common alternative of course, is trust. while I wish that this method of control worked, the fact is that it's not an effective means to control people. trust is hard to obtain, but most importantly, trust is easy to lose, even if one is of perfect character.

intelligence and Money are helpful for a government to be successful, but they really don't affect the government's control of the people

edit: I forgot to mention; control of the media is extremely important to control a society. it affects everyone opinions of everything we know about, with the exception of those that apply critical thinking

...I guess i should say my opinion as well...
My choice was Trust.

I believe that Fear...is simply an incentive.
...and intelligence is actually a form of trust.

I agree that trust from a single person is very volatile - it is both hard to convince and easy to lose one's
recognition and reputation from only a single ego.

However, once settled within a society it is much much more than just trust...it becomes a belief...
Much much more powerful than just fear itself.

...Keep in mind, trust can be acquired in many (sometimes surprising) ways.

Religion has been a pretty good way i hear.

Isn't it possible to say that money is also a form of trust?

I voted intelligence. if you have it and the people don't, they are easy to manipulate.

as they say, "knowledge is power".

I meant to choose fear but chose other as I was thinking of somthing else. But in reality it's a combination of all of those options.

Keep in mind this is only a single issue I am commenting on and not to be taken as an explanation for all areas of society.

Take this concept: "smiling is bad for the economy because miserable people buy more things." Therefore, in order to create fear they project disturbing images and stories of rapes and murders in the media, a tool people see as completely true in their understanding of what is going on in the world (yes, rapes and murders are very real, but the way the media portray it is a sort of moral panic technique to keep people in constant fear that there is a rapist and murderer on every corner of every street, that's why mostly bad things are shown). In addition to this, they advertise crap we don't need and put people down telling them that if they don't look (beauty/healthcare produdcts) like the people in the adverts and don't smell (deodorant/perfume) like them then people won't speak to us and we will be outcasts in society. As a result, people buy things, and what do we have? A successful economy as a wolf in sheep's clothing.

So basically, people are manipulated via the mass media that stresses how important material success is, and if we don't follow mainstream society by agreeing to their control and being consuming slaves then we are outcasts, thus successfully creating fear by way of paranoia. But obviously not everyone is an outcast, that's just the message the media portrays, especially in bandwagon propaganda advertising.

Of course this isn't all economies as we have to take into account underdeveloped countries, but it's certainly true for the most part here in the UK. That's just my opinion anyway.

In my opinion, Intellegence is needed for you to control a society.

Why? For you to successfully control a society, you have to be smart enough to control them but not to make them notice they are being controlled.

If they don't know that they are being controlled, they won't make organizations or groups against the government (or the controller). Because if they do, many people will realize they are being controlled and they will fight back and there you have it.

The second thing that you may need is Money. Without money, plans that you created will not work. Plans will only become plans. You need something to get it moving, and that's the role of money.

That's how I will control a society if I want to success of doing so, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Hear me out on this one: love.

I'm not talking about mushy-gushy hippies' love. I'm talking about adoration for a leader. Exempla gratia: North Korea. They haven't had the best times, and in fact, it's kind of shitty up in there. But they fucking loved their "Dear Leader," and why?

He was a God to them. To elaborate, another example: Nazi Germany. Post-Treaty-of-Versailles Germany was totally shitty. The German mark was absolutely worthless. There are pictures of starving people burning money to stay warm. Then Hitler rose to power, and he actually improved the shit out of Germany. He was the figurehead of the saving of Germany's economy, and they loved him. Many people lost that love when he started getting harsh with the Jews and the megalomania and whatnot, but for a while, he had total control because the people loved him.

The methods and causes vary, but the most efficient way to keep a people in check is to somehow earn their earnest adoration.

i actually completely agree that love does give you power. but sooner or later even that will pass. Because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In Hitler's i think it was more congenital disease than the latter as he was actually quarter Jewish and not actually "Aryan". his ideas were grand but those ideas will change as time goes on and that love will fade. IMO love as a means of controlling society lasts a very very short time and only in front of a completely controlled media.

I have to agree on some level.

I think that love as a means to power is the best method of control because the people want it. Also, it has fewer consequences coming from the people. Dissenters are less likely to openly rebel because the society surrounding them is in objection to them; many dissenters emigrate, and as a result, they lose the ability to form strong rebellion.

Furthermore, a loved dictator is less likely to be beaten to death by his people than a feared one.

In an autocratic, totalitarian gov't i completely agree. But there are those who know that there is a very high chance of failure that they will still fight eg Operation Valkyrie (was actually a legitimate operation). But those who will fight, will make the leader fear for his life and he will eventually be scared and turn to fear based rulership. So yes, i believe love would work but only temporarily. But i think we approach controlling society to linearly. Each type of gov't has its weaknesses.

IMO in democratic gov't systems, the big controlling system is money for it corrupts everything. For example, if say 15 big companies were the true power behind America and controlled every political aspect, could the rest of population actually do anything? Sure, they could on the surface, but the underground is what controls the political climate: the circulation of illegitimate money aka bribes. Only those that the companies know will support them will gain their support to rise through the ranks.

I say Intelligence is the best means to control a society.
Knowledge is power and when used correctly you can gain, trust, money, more power, and control. You may have trust, money, or power, but they cannot be used to their fullest extent without the proper intelligence. The only one who can beat someone who has all the cards and knowledge to use it is someone smarter than the one with the cards.

No matter what, you need intelligence to CONTROL a society.
Sure, there might be royalties that controlled societies, but that's only because of "royal heritage", because the first ruler that took power was smart enough to lead them. Later on, his/her kids probably got dumber and dumber.
With intelligence, you can breed trust, and/or hate. From people you make money. With money, comes power. With power comes control.
Simple, ain't it?