ABSTRACT
I have taken from the French ethologist Jean-Jacques Petter the term “noyau” as a label for the society of inward antagonism. It is awkward—even bad taste, perhaps—to introduce a foreign word to a discussion in which we are afflicted by so many concepts foreign to our normal thinking. It has seemed to me wise, however, to get as far away as possible from all those English words like “community” or “society” which inevitably bear connotations of co-operation. Noyau—meaning, roughly, a nucleus—is correct in that it implies a primitive evolutionary step toward societies characterized by mutual aid. But more important to this inquiry than its precision is its lack of connotation for the English-thinking mind, and that is what we shall need if we are to build up an appreciation for those groups of individuals held together by mutual animosity, who could not survive had they no friends to hate.
