ABSTRACT
In social conflict one person opposes another. They may differ in belief (say about the various consequences of different economic policies), or in preference (say about whether to go to war, or where to build a new road), or, most often, in both. Frequently they will differ in their evaluations, that is, in their views of what is good or best, of what matters or matters most and how it matters. Here their divergence is indissolubly both in belief, since they disagree about what is true and false, and in desire if not in preference, since the presence of appropriate desire is a mark of sincerity in an evaluation. (I can find a proposal ingenious without favouring it, but not without being attracted in a way by the thought of its adoption or implementation.) It is further necessary, if the difference is to amount to a conflict, that the parties should not merely contradict each other, but confront one another as adversaries. When Chairman Mao proclaimed ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend’, he was (ostensibly) welcoming a variety of opinions and predilections that might co-exist and compete in a free market of ideas within a society of comrades. In situations of conflict, views that are not one’s own appear threatening or damaging: they present themselves not as sources of refreshing variety or of healthy competition, but as objects of hostility. One can enjoy contradiction, and benefit from competition, but the parties to a conflict are not just rivals but antagonists. Conflict is always uncomfortable.
