Separation deliberately pursued produces the sharpest and bitterest conflicts.

Evidence

The recall of earlier agreement has such a strong effect that the new contrast is infinitely sharper and bitterer than if no relation at all had existed in the past. Moreover, often both parties realize the difference between the new phase and the similarity remembered (and the unambiguousness of this difference is of the greatest importance to them) only by allowing it to grow far beyond its original locus and to characterize every point which is at all comparable. This aim of securing the two respective positions transforms theoretical or religious defection into the reciprocal charge of heresy in respect to all moral, personal, internal and external matters—a charge not necessarily ensuing where the same difference occurs between strangers. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 320

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the essay’s causal chain: deliberate separation of the familiar (the flâneur retreating from intimacy) heightens rather than dulls conflict — the psychic cost of detachment. — connects to: Bitterest conflict arises between those formerly most alike. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 320

Related

• Bitterest conflict arises between those formerly most alike. (similarity 0.87)
• The firmly grounded relation dares conflict while weak ones avoid it (similarity 0.79)