Resolving one conflict merely produces a fresh enemy to define oneself against

Evidence

It is human to hate. For self-definition and motivation people need enemies: competitors in business, rivals in achievement, opponents in politics. They naturally distrust and see as threats those who are different and have the capability to harm them. The resolution of one conflict and the disappearance of one enemy generate personal, social, and political forces that give rise to new ones. “The ‘us’ versus ‘them’ tendency is,” as Ali Mazrui said, “in the political arena, almost universal.” In the contemporary world the “them” is more and more likely to be people from a different civilization. The end of the Cold War has not ended conflict but has rather given rise to new identities rooted in culture and to new patterns of conflict among groups from different cultures which at the broadest level are civilizations. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 353

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes ‘We’ by Zamyatin and social identity theory’s in-group/out-group formation. — connects to: Being-for-others generates perpetual conflict as each self objectifies the other — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1462; The perceived permanent Enemy binds pluralist societies into cohesive defense societies — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 235; Selfhood and national unity are forged through conflict with a common foe — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1194 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that peace permanently manufactures replacement enemies — conflict termination as self-defeating — resists easy summary and sits with the reader.