The act of adopting or incorporating someone's ideas into your own system, often without giving them credit or involving them in decisions.
From Latin 'cooptare' (co- 'together' + optare 'to choose'), meaning to elect or appoint someone to fill a vacancy. The meaning evolved from the Roman practice of the Senate choosing new members to fill empty seats, to modern usage meaning to absorb ideas or people into an existing group.
In the American counterculture of the 1960s, many feared their radical ideas would be 'coopted' by mainstream corporations—and they were right; companies turned rebellious symbols into marketing tools. This word captures how power structures absorb challenges from within rather than defeating them.
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