Collision of Wills: How Ambiguity about Social Rank Breeds Conflict

220 Pages·2003·0.737 MB·English

by  Roger V. Gould

Collision of Wills

collision wills
of
How Ambiguity about Social Rank Breeds Conflict
Roger V. Gould
Foreword by Peter Bearman
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Roger V. Gould was professor of sociology and political science at Yale University
and, from 1990 to 2000, taught sociology at the University of Chicago. He wrote
Insurgent Identities: Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the
Commune(1995) and edited Rational Choice Controversy in Historical Sociology
(2001), both published by the University of Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2003 by Erin Graves
All rights reserved. Published 2003
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN: 0-226-30548-1 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-226-30550-3 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gould, Roger V.
Collision of wills : how ambiguity about social rank breeds con?ict / Roger V.
Gould ; foreword by Peter Bearman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-226-30548-1 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-226-30550-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Social con?ict. 2. Interpersonal con?ict. 3. Violence. 4. Social groups.
5.Group identity. 6. Social control. 7. Dominance (Psychology) I. Title.
HM1121 .G68 2003
303.6—dc21
2003005699
oThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
[ CONTENTS ]
Foreword by Peter Bearman ix
Chapter 1 Con?ict, Honor, and Hierarchy 1
Chapter 2 Dominance Relations 27
Chapter 3 Strife out of Symmetry 67
Chapter 4 Solidarity and Group Con?ict 105
Chapter 5 Con?ict and Social Structure 147
Chapter 6 Honor and the Individual 167
References 183
Index 195
v

For Erin

[ FOREWORD ]
Roger Gould died at age thirty-nine on April 29, 2002, after
along battle with leukemia. Two weeks before his death he
completed this manuscript and submitted it for publication.
At submission, the manuscript was missing some elements
typically associated with books: a preface, acknowledgments,
and a dedication. Roger was a linear thinker who wrote ?uidly
in >rst-draft mode. This is the case with this manuscript as
well. Everything was completed except the part that sets the
stage for the reader, describes the context of the book and the
persons whose in?uences shaped the ideas, and identi>es, in
retrospect, the scope conditions for the arguments made. For
Roger these elements of a manuscript were less important for
the review process, perhaps distracting, and often deployed
by authors for instrumental reasons, signaling their prior
achievements and academic lineage, perhaps to enhance the
probability of favorable review. Consequently, he did not write
this material. In this brief foreword, I describe the contexts in
which this book was written, acknowledge those whose insti-
tutional contributions helped shape the >nal production (as
best as I can ascertain), describe the limited role I have taken
as midwife for the manuscript, and consider some of the
broader issues that this distinguished book raises. Readers
may also note that the book does not have a “conclusion” chap-
ix