Essay --

STAGE 1 EntrenchmentThe first stage of conflict escalation develops when a divergence over some issue or frustration in a relationship proves resilient to resolution efforts. The problem remains, and leads to irritation. The threshold to stage 2 is taken when one or both parties lose faith in the possibility of solving the problems through straight and fair verbal discussions. STAGE 2 DebateThe parties look for more firm and fonder ways of pushing through their standpoints. The dispute is no longer restricted only to a well-defined issue, exclusively the parties start to feel that their general position is at stake. Debates are no longer only focused on which standpoint has more merits, but in any case on who is most successful in promoting the standpoints, and how the outcomes of the debates affect ones reputation. When rational and issue-relevant arguments dont promisingly ensure success, the parties resort to quasi-rational argumentation, such as the underlying causes of the pr esent problems avoiding blame strong exaggeration of the implications and consequences of the counterparts standpoints suggestive comments about the relation of the central issue with other concerns, linking the issue to larger value ideologies, reference to recognized authorities or custom in order to gain legitimacy for a standpoint stating the alternatives as extremes, in order to get the opponent to accept a reasonable compromise.Discussions straight turn into debates, where inflexible standpoints collide. The growing mistrust creates a sense of insecurity and loss of control. Efforts to control the counterpart belong to later escalation stages. The threshold to stage 3 is related to the basic right of each party to be heard of mutual interest. S... ...the adversary. When a party is attacked in a way that threatens to shatter it, it is oblige to make strong efforts to suppress internal conflicts. The only restraining factor is the concern for ones own survival.The threshold t o stage 9 is reached when the self-preservation drive is given up. When this happens, there is no check at all on further destructiveness.STAGE 9 Total destructionIn the last stage of conflict escalation, the drive to blow out the enemy is so strong that even the self-preservation instinct is neglected. Not even ones own survival counts, the enemy shall be exterminated even at the terms of destruction of ones own very existence as an organization, group, or individual. All bridges are burnt, there is no return. The only remaining concern in the race towards the other side is to make sure that the other side is equally destructed too.