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 safety-

valve institutions. In the face of external conflict, group members may be motivated by self-

interest 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.