Is it better to be loved or feared?

[Dignan]

In A Bronx Tale the main character asks this mobster the question, “is it better to be loved or feared?” I can’t remember the mobster’s answer, but I thought he said it was better to be feared, because it lasts forever. Then again, I really don’t remember so it might have been that love was better, anyway someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

That kind of applies to this board too. Is it better to be loved or feared on the board? Maybe not so much “feared” as “annoying” or “irritated” or “consistently wrong.” For example, whenever someone even mentions circumcision in a GQ thread or somewhere else who is the first person that everyone (that’s been here a while) thinks of? Yep, it’s [sub]JDT[/sub]. Doesn’t it even creep into your subconcious off the board? If someone even mentions it out in public don’t you think of the crazy guy and his theories on the message board?

What about another poster whose grammar, spelling, and punctuation was usually atrocious and extremely left wing? No matter how I try whenever I see a thread that has to do with steroids or racial slurs for Arabs, I can’t help but think “I know who posted this one …” even though he is banned.

So those would be the type to be “feared,” but not really, it’s just that you remember them, or “fear” what kind of stupid garbage they’re going to use to litter the board.

Other than popping my gum, I don’t think I have any bad habits that would be as high on the annoying scale to have me end up getting banned like the two people I named above. I don’t really want to be banned either so the whole being “feared” probably won’t work for me.

Being loved would probably be the way to go, I guess. Wally has been gone for a couple of years (from even before I got here) and people still have his comments in sigs, and remember him fondly.

I’m not clever enough to be loved and I’m not too keen on the idea of pissing everyone off and not being able to post here. I guess I’ll just stick with what I’ve been doing, and post, but mostly lurk … unless someone thinks I should try to go the “feared” route, that’d probably be easier than getting people to like me. Anyway …

[CRorex]

Personally I find if you command a monkey army, the question if you should be loved or feared is moot.

[Barbarian]

I’ve been feared. Being loved is more fun.

[_etalhea]

I have over 500 employees. Trust me, fear is much quicker and more effective.

[a_gherkin]

being loved makes you feel as though you are a good person. if people fear you, you just feel like a bastard!

[JRDelirious]

Of course, the scenario is but a rephrasing of this classic treatise:

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you(…) ; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated(…)
(…)Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted.

[emphasis added by JRD]

So the answer would have been “feared, if I have to choose only one but not the other” if the mobster is a reader of Machiavelli. Because the ideal objective would be to inspire both sincere appreciation of your good points and a healthy, reasonable apprehension of the consequences of betraying you (not of you as a standing threat). To be respected.

Notice that caveat to avoid becoming hated. In an environment such as this board, the only people who can be really “feared” in the princely sense are the Mods and Administrators; however we mortals can be “feared-lite” in the Machiavellian sense – if we become so respected that anyone wanting to call us out on some point of discussion, or simply flame us, will wait to do so until they have an airtight, ironclad, and/or self-evident case, or else will insert a ton of qualifiers and apologies, because otherwise they know they will look bad attacking you any you will wipe the floor with them. Being gratuituously extreme, abrasive, confrontational, etc. to the point everyone detests you, is “becoming hated”, not “feared” (and the quoted book does warn that trying too hard to be liked, i.e. trying to “buy” people’s love thru flattery and appeasement, will get you scorned and mocked).