But there are so many people who are souls in progress, who do not seek to engage in conflict. They are passionate people who lose it for a moment. As a website administrator, it's not that hard to tell the difference if a person has been a regular on this website. I can go to his or her archive, check out the comments he or she has posted and see if there has been a history of genuine conversation and dialogue or simply a few or many offensive, rude, netiquette violating postings.
The challenge comes when the visitor is new. Sometimes the comment is soe offensive that a single comment will cause the new member to be banned, particularly if it is hateful and more so if the bio and demographics provided on sign-up are dishonest or insulting to other members.
Sometimes, I'll delete the comment and send the member a note, making it clear the behavior is not acceptable. And sometimes I'll go ahead and ban the member and drop a note, not only saying the comment was unacceptable, but also asking the person to let me know if there's a serious interest in being in this community, and if so, he or she can cool off and drop me an email in a week or a month, after which I'll un-ban him.
People, good people, lose it sometimes. And the quotations I've included below have helped me to be more tolerant of them, and even, to see in them great potential.
As far as my own history. I used to get caught up in flame wars on line-- in forums, listserves, email-- more often than I would have liked. Then I set a simple rule for myself. If I write a message-- email, comment, posting-- that is angry and mean or combative-- I sit on it, preferably overnight. I don't send it out right away.
One thing I learned from a researcher is that when you write down stuff that bothers you, that makes you sad, angry, miserable, just writing it down can be therapeutic. But then, if you throw it away, or delete it, that can also be a good healthy thing to do. This researcher even showed that when people did this-- wrote down stuff that made them angry-- their immune functions improved.
I'd say that 98% of the time, when I write an angry missive-- and I still do ocassionally-- I end up throwing them away. I get the stuff off my chest and then don't bother engaging in conflict. And believe me, as publisher of this website, I get my share of abuse and name calling emails. Most are from people who are very presidential in a Dubya kind of way-- can't form a healthy sentence, can't spell, use poor grammar-- and I tend to ignore them. But ocassionally an intelligently written, obnoxious message comes through. Those are theo ones I'm more susceptible to. When I'm on my best behavior, I've engaged the writers without venom. And on a number of ocassions, have made new friends-- right wing friends who I can have respectful dialogues with.
Now, there are often people on this site who are not even right wingers. They're people with strong opinions on one issue where there may be disagreeement. Strong opinion is no excuse for incivility. But, nonetheless, people go there. They get nasty. That's where some of the quotations below come in handy. I hope you enjoy them and find them as useful as I have, over the years in modifying your filters that influence how you to decide to deal with people.
"There are faults so closely allied to certain good qualities that they announce their presence, and of such we do well not to cure ourselves."
Joubert
"Tis to my faults that I, my virtues owe."
LaFare, Marquis De
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women-- I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)
Whitman, Walt, Song of The Open Road
"The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually to make a new man of himself."
Wang Yang Ming (15th century) quoted by Helena Kuo
"Best men are moulded out of faults."
Shakespeare
"The History of the greatest princes is often the story of men's Mistakes."
Voltaire, La Siecle de Louis XIV, chap.XI
"For I am a man and think it no disgrace to have my share of human weaknesses."
Voltaire, La Pucelle, chant 7
"There is nothing more apt to deceive us than our own judgement, in deciding on our own works; and we should derive more advantage from having our faults pointed out by our enemies, than by hearing the opinions of our friends, because they are too much like ourselves, and may deceive us as much as our own judgement."
DaVinci, Leonardo, A TREATISE ON PAINTING
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