The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies hosts the Center for Revolutionary Scientific Thought (CReST), which harbors individuals from a variety of backgrounds to ensure a complete outlook on the futures of science and technology from an academic and policy perspective. CReST intends to inform the public and government officials, alike, about the most pressing issues and concerns regarding the future of science and technology. See one of our latest CReST blogs below:

Winning Hearts and Minds

By Dr. Charles Mueller

Winning hearts and minds is how you lead a country, it is key to winning wars, and it is what good governance depends on in a rational society. If you do not have the hearts and minds of the people, then you cannot lead them or protect them. People’s hearts and minds are won by giving them something to believe in, giving them something to trust. When people believe that you will help create the reality they hope to see, they give their hearts and minds to you. This is something all people who want power understand because power is controlling the hearts and minds of the people. Today, the hearts and minds of the rational people around the world are being controlled by an irrational idea, that trepidation is normal, that terrorism is acceptable, that we are not free to live without fear. That fear was perpetuated earlier this week when Daesh carried out a series of cowardly attacks on the innocent people in the capital of Belgium.

The hearts of people are won by gaining their trust, by capturing their loyalty. Terrorists groups like Daesh are winning the hearts of rational people, people like the teenager Maysa from Belgium who drank the Daesh kool-aid. The heart is not always a rational thing, it is fueled by emotion and responds most greatly to fear. We are losing the hearts of the rational people of the world somehow. The heart is most susceptible to change when it is living in fear. Ironically, by creating an unstable world the terrorists gain the hearts of the rational people.

Find the entire blog here.