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OPPOSITION

means a common subordination to the law, a common acceptance
 of its forms of procedure, and a common recognition
 of the fact that the decision can be made only according
 to the objective weight of the evidence. The
parties to the contest are subordinate to a social power
and a social order which give significance and security to
that contest and make it rest on a broad basis of community
 and consensus between the opponents similar to the
unity and consensus which are created by the parties to a
contract or a commercial transaction through the realization
 and acceptance of the fact that, apart from the possible
 antithesis of interests, they are bound by common rules
and regulations. These common presuppositions, which
exclude from the legal contest everything that is personal,
give a purely factual and objective character to the unitary
 aspect of the relationship, which is paralleled in the
dualistic aspect of the relationship by the sharpness, bitterness.
 and relentlessness of the struggle itself.

The Conflict of Impersonal Interests

The conflict between individuals on account of impersonal
 interests bears a similar character. In such a case the
interest in the struggle, and thereby the struggle itself,
becomes differentiated from the person of the opponent.
But the realization of being merely representatives of superindividual
 claims and of fighting, not for self, but for
the cause gives to the struggle often a radical and merciless
nature. Its character becomes analogous to the conduct
of some entirely unselfish and idealistic people who, sacrificing
 their own lives for a cause, hold themselves entirely
justified in sacrificing everybody else. Such a struggle
for impersonal interests, but which is fought with all the
strength and resources of the whole personality, bears the
stamp of respectability. The respectable man is the man

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