Whether society’s normal state is harmony or conflict is a foundational theoretical choice.

Evidence

In studies of social stability and integration, which is close to our subject here, there is a basic confrontation between considering the “normal” state of society to be harmonious or conflictual—for instance, between functionalists and systems theorists, on the one hand, and class theorists, on the other. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4274

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the functionalist-vs-conflict debate central to sociology (Coser, Dahrendorf) and the book’s own attention to stability under hierarchy.