Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/529

 THE SOCIOLOGY OF CONFLICT 511

itself to its own bounds in this case the subjectivity of the personality we may give ourselves over to it very often more absolutely than if its impulse had to carry a ballast of secondary animosities into territories which really are assailed only by those central motives. Where such differentiation leaves room, on the other hand, for struggle only on the side of impersonal interests, the minutest intensifications and embitterments usual when personal considerations enter into quarrels will also fall away. On the other hand, however, the consciousness of being merely the representative of superindividual claims that is, of fighting, not for self, but only for the thing itself may lend to the struggle a radicalism and mercilessness which have their anal- ogy in the total conduct of many very unselfish and high-minded men. Because they grant themselves no consideration, they like- wise have none for others, and hold themselves entirely justified in sacrificing everybody else to the idea to which they are them- selves a sacrifice. Such a struggle, into which all the powers of the person are thrown, while victory accrues only to the cause, carries the character of respectability, for the reputable man is the wholly personal, who, however, understands how to hold his personality entirely in check. Hence objectivity operates as noblesse. When, however, this differentiation is accomplished, and struggle is objectified, it is not subjected to a further reserve, which would be quite inconsistent; indeed, that would be a sin against the content of the interest itself upon which the struggle had been localized. On the basis of this common element between the parties namely, that each defends merely the issue and its right, and excludes from consideration everything self- ishly personal the struggle is fought out without the sharpness, but also without the mollifyings, which come from intermingling of the personal element. Merely the imminent logic of the situ- ation is obeyed with absolute precision. This form of antithesis between unity and antagonism intensifies conflict perhaps most perceptibly in cases where both parties actually pursue one and the same purpose ; for example, in the case of scientific contro- versies, in which the issue is the establishment of the truth. In such a case every concession, every polite consent to stop short