Hostility versus Civility

Dear readers,

these ponderings were caused not only by events within Entropia Universe but also the very different behaviours displayed here on the Entropia Forum.

I like to be known as a civil person, but of course from time to time I fail to achieve this.

There is a lot that can be gained from being a civil person, but then why is not everyone always civil?
There is no single answer to this but in fact 3 which should cover all reasons to be hostile towards someone (*.
Let me say in short the reasons are: Confrontation, Efficiency and Gain.

Confrontation
When faced with a hostile person its tough to remain calm and civil.
Most people will give in to the temptation of anger and start being hostile themselves.
It takes a lot of energy to remain civil, but the gain of this are a clean consciousness and possible bafflement of the hostile party, which can put one in a much better position in a quarrel.
Taking energy leads us to the next reason.


Efficiency
Being civil takes at least a little bit of energy when you communicate, as you have to consider the other parties perception of your words.
The energy it takes can grow quite a lot if you talk/write in a foreign language or are maybe even dyslexic.
This is where most of the unwanted trouble stems from.
Many people chose not to "waste energy" on being civil.
This can quickly lead to situations where a wrong choice of words hurts the other party.
Even life long feuds can result from not watching ones words for a split second.
Maybe its best described by an "ouch" situation, nearly everyone already had in his life -> you just said something and it hits you "Ouch I should not have said that".
Putting a little bit of energy towards some forethought to the possible effect of your words is all it takes to mostly avoid such situations.


Gain
Some people actively chose to be hostile because they actually can gain from it.
This is the reason for most flaming in threads and personal attacks.
But what is that gain?
Very understandable gain is when it is about material issues like manipulating a market.
Flaming resellers makes the life of them harder and eventually will turn some potential buyers away from them.
Emotional gains are either satisfaction when you strike out at someone you hate or making yourself feel better by belittling the success of people who have more success.
This belittling issue is what makes most people uncivil and hostile towards successful people.
Often it really seems like famous persons void their right to be treated in a civil manner.
Well should you be such a person: do not see it as a negative thing, but add every attack to your success counter, if people feel they need to lash out at you, some success by you will more often be the reason to that, than the reason given in the actual attack.
Another sidenote to those that chose to be hostile: think about it and reconsider, is the gain really big enough for you to want to face the consequences?


*) Please note something many people tend to miss: if you are hostile towards someone depends not on your choice to be hostile, but rather on the perception of the party you talk to.
This can have two effects.
First: Often enough someone claims "but I wasn't hostile" - well that is wrong - if the other party is hurt you were hostile.
You just did not intend to be hostile, which eventually does not remove the blame from you.
Only the hurt party can chose to forgive you, but for that you have to apologize first.
Second: you want to be hostile but the other party is totally oblivious of your efforts.
This can be quite frustrating if you do want to hurt someone, but find no way to make your words get through.