CONFLICT AND SOLIDARITY

Conflict and Solidarity. (a) Conflict. "War", said Hera-clitus, "is the father of all things." Conflict is not, however, the normal condition of social relationship. A mere mutual interdependence of striving wills has been succeeded, as civilization has developed, by an organic cooperation for the readier satisfaction of all. "Mutualism" is replaced by a measure of "solidarity". The State, as Plato asserted, has come to exist for peace, and, in so far as it assumes a military organization, this is for the better protection of the civil peace within its borders. The protection of life and the protection of the good life alike must involve the maintenance of a peaceful order, as a condition, if man is to live either securely or well. The criticism is then sound that any treatment of the problems of social life which implies a persistent condition of overt or impending conflict is a pathological treatment.^I Social organization has been successfully built up through the ages as a bulwark against strife, and is firmly based upon the cooperative inter-locking of wills. For if the aims of many wills lead to conflicts, the fulfilment of those wills enjoins order and peace.² Conflict is the contradiction of social order and all civilization implies a measure of order. If the overt conflict of races, nations, or groups may be argued^I to be the original cause of civilization, as hammer, anvil, and molten iron are of the implement of steel, this overt conflict cannot be argued to be the principle in accordance with which it is at present organized. And this is true although the condition of war may still be considered between groups larger than the national (although no longer between family groups) to be an ever possible contingency and even (by some) a desirable purge.