A party can function as a general ideology superintending scattered rival groups

Evidence

Since discord unfolds its negative, destructive character between particular individuals, we naively conclude that it must have the same effect on the total group. In reality, however, something which is negative and damaging between individuals if it is considered in isolation and as aiming in a particular direction, does not necessarily have the same effect within the total relationship of these individuals. For a very different picture emerges when we view the conflict in conjunction with other interactions not affected by it. The negative and dualistic elements play an entirely positive role in this more comprehensive picture, despite the destruction they may work on particular relations. All this is very obvious in the competition of individuals within an economic unit. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 280 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Party-system type determines both attitude to power and citizen-state position; Democratic freedoms only function where citizens form groups or hierarchies — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 749; Classic Continental theory held parties subordinate to the state (+11 more)

Related

• Conflict destructive at one level can integrate the larger group (similarity 0.83)
• Parties are definitionally partial and oppositional, not unifying institutions (similarity 0.80)
• Order inside groups mirrors the same mutual-restraint mechanism as between groups (similarity 0.80)
• Political parties prove that organized permanent passion is operationally possible (similarity 0.80)
• Parties organize political conflict rather than merely reflecting preexisting disagreements (similarity 0.80)
• Party spirit, not individualism, is the foundation of State spirit (similarity 0.79)
• Parties do not mirror existing conflicts but actively create and organize them (similarity 0.78)
• A party is an embryonic state and can permit no division of power (similarity 0.78)
• The state recovered lost social direction by constructing a unified internal enemy (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Party, State, and world-conception develop integrally and continuously reshape each other #expands (0.80)
• Conflict destructive at one level can integrate the larger group #expands (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 280