Lewis A. Coser. 1964. The Functions of Social Conflict. New York, NY: Free Press.
If a group is defined in terms of its moral language, then the group’s boundaries are blurred
insofar as group members lack consensus on this language’s tenets. Generally speaking, Georg
Simmel argued that group consensus is threatened from within but strengthened from without.
Successively increasing levels of threat are posed by a group’s renegade, heretic, and dissenter.
Whereas open societies afford flexible means for conflict to dissipate at low levels, totalitarian
societies’ rigidity only allow hostility to be released against disfavored persons through safetyvalve institutions. In the face of external conflict, group members may be motivated by selfinterest or group representation. The conflict will engender group solidarity only to the extent
that the former motivation does not exceed the former’s normative limits.