Introduction

Conflict, and violent human conflict in particular, involves the development of a requisite degree of inevitability when the actors assess their situation or instinctively react to it. This chapter looks at the peace-conflict modulation as a parameter of human sociality, that is, as a standardised aspect of social interaction which works in a particular way, is largely understood in a common manner by the human species, and has its standard causes and consequences. Internal social differentiation is elevated to the degree of an eternal struggle between classes that represents in practice the entire human history. Humans are considered ‘prosocial’ in the sense that they display more elaborate supportive behaviour towards individuals of their own species and to an extent towards other animals too. It is sad that coercion, subordination and violence contributed to the exponential progress in complexifying social systems and increasing human control over the entire planet.