I don’t think conflict occurs because (groups of) people have different standards. Conflict occurs because of the illusion that those of different standards can work together. It is this illusion that leads to the buildup of grievances collected from compromise – and for two sides of different value systems, every compromise is a negative-sum game.
It ties back to an earlier post on perceptive bias, a form of corollary to the Dunning-Kruger effect – people tend to overestimate the merits of their own values and thus self-righteous justification upon finding out the other side doesn’t hold the same. By self-righteous justification, I also mean victimization, which leads to hate.
Misunderstanding is a sort of entropy (perhaps I can coin it the second law of political dynamics) that accumulates by sole virtue of interaction (which is bound to occur if both parties live under the same roof/country).
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