CHAPTER II 
OPPOSITION 
CONFLICT AND STRUGGLE! 
EFERENCE has already been made to the fact that 
R the unity of groups is not due solely to the conver- 
gence of interests and the harmonious co-ordination 
of elements. Societies require a certain proportion of at- 
traction and repulsion, harmony and disharmony, asso- 
~iation and dissociation, integration and differentiation, 
co-operation and competition among their elements to ob- 
tain a definite organization. Groups which are entirely 
harmonious, and which are composed of elements which 
have centripetal tendencies only, would not only be impos- 
sible empirically, but they would have no life-process and 
no structure. The acceptance of leadership and the subor- 
dination to authority are therefore not the only forms of 
interaction that make for social unity. The conflicts and 
oppositions between the elements fulfil that same function. 
They, too, contribute to the total process of socialization 
and must therefore be investigated with reference to that 
function. 
That conflicts have sociological significance, inasmuch 
as they either produce or modify communities of interest, 
unifications, and organizations, has in principle never been 
contested. But apart from this sociological significance 
which accrues to conflict through its consequences and ac- 
companiments, it has a sociological significance in and for 
itself owing to the fact that it is a positive form of inter- 
1 Adapted from Soz.. chap. iv, pp. 247-336. 
119