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OPPOSITION

115

is something external to the struggle itself, which might
perhaps be obtained by other means, will give a distinct
color to the struggle. Only if the struggle is prompted exclusively
 by the love of struggle is there no other alternative
 and can satisfaction result from conflict only.
The pugnacious instinct, however, is usually not the
sole element in the struggle. It acts rather as a reinforcement
 to the other impulses that bring about the controversy,
 or as a foundation on which a conflict can be built.
Even if a struggle is originally fought solely for the sake
of the struggle, this situation will not remain. The interest
 in the struggle may at the outset have been impersonal
and indifferent to the content of the controversy, but
eventually hatred and envy will reinforce the original impulse.
 The purity of a struggle for struggle’s sake, therefore,
 does not remain. It becomes mixed with other imnulses
 and with objective interests.!

The Contest Game

A conflict and struggle exclusively for the sake of the
struggle and without any other impulse or ulterior motive
occurs only in the case of the contest game. In this case
the purely sociological attraction of self-assertion and of
predominance over others in skill is combined only with
the purely individual pleasure in the exercise of purposeful
and successful activity. The contest game in its sociological
 motivation contains nothing but the contest itself. The
worthless markers, for the sake of which men often play
with the same earnestness with which they play for money,
indicate the purely formal aspect of this impulse.
But even in the case of the contest game there exists
a socialization in the more narrow sense of the term. No
contest can take place without some kind of unification.

l Soz., pp. 247-64.