Thesis: Conflict makes life more interesting.
I am prefacing to say that conflict of all types/degrees is usually not good. It is causing stress, discomfort, many times death and suffering. We can say we do not like it so we are not labeled as the psychopath. But in the human condition with none of the filters, we are needing it for our entertainment. Many people will never admit it, I imagine there may be a skew with results, but conflict is making life more interesting. So many people seeking outrage. So much watching reality TV and YouTube personalities picking teams. White power movements and nationalism. Invasions, religious fights and controlling borders. Humans love it, without it life is boring.
1,000“But supposing the world has become "filled up", so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy."
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
Depends on the conflict. Technology cycles are interesting but violence is generally not interesting to anyone other than nihilists. Culture wars are a distraction and an energy sink. The abortion debate hasn't changed in 50 years. The anti-abortion position is ultimately about creating enough surplus humans to maintain the status quo. The pro-abortion position is that individuals should have a choice, even if it's a late choice because even Charlie Kirk can't tell the difference between a 12 week human fetus and a dolphin fetus.
Xenophobia is a conflict oriented tactic for attempting to limit conflict. Their premise is (at least partially) paradoxical, which explains why most diligent xenophobes are generally duller and less interesting that the average person. Their primary preoccupation sucks all the curiosity for life out of them.
There's a sense in which this is true, in that people need goals that aren't super easy to attain, and you could call those difficulties "conflict". But "conflict" usually refers specifically to interpersonal disagreements, and, at that, to ones that are severe enough to be bad, not to ones that get people into a flow state to solve them.
