e.

The civilizational competence of "the others" as well as "my own" reaches as far as the respective right to self-governance. If people behave in a civilized manner although the others do not allow for their autonomy, they are at best martyrs for the sake of their own self-esteem. What if they decide to refuse to suffer? A lot of the bad politics in the Middle East, a lot of gender trouble and other things, is about this central issue. To the strong and powerful in the world this means: If you want civilized neighbors, don't try to be wiser than they are by "knowing their real motives", for instance, but take their offers of civilized dealings seriously. "They have to prove maturity first", however, is a good sentence to begin a spin of escalation you won't be able to control in the end.