ABSTRACT
Men struggle not only against adverse natural circumstances but also against one another. It is this latter type of struggle which is a major preoccupation of many social scientists. In particular, sociologists have long shown an interest in those forms of behavior which they call the disjunctive social processes. Both the system of tenure and the respect accorded the "independent spirit" in academic circles, furthermore, result in a greater measure of tolerance for difficult persons than would be found in almost any comparable social system. Large-scale and intense forms of competition, inter- rather than intragroup conflict, and overt instances of hostility have afforded ready-made "problems" for research. Since there has been much less research into the subtler and more muted forms of disjunction occurring within highly homogeneous groupings, there are correspondingly fewer assumptions about the sources of tension and hostility and the origins of competition and conflict in this kind of milieu.
