Untitled #2
Watercolor
10”x12”
2003
By Ricardo F. Morín
Oct. 9, 2025
Bala Cynwyd, Pa
Abstract
Conflict endures not only because of the grievances that ignite it, but also because of the internal logic that sustains it. Hatred, victimhood, hypocrisy, tribalism, and violence do not operate as separate forces; they form an interdependent system that is justified at every turn. This essay examines a system of conflict as a grammar—a set of rules and patterns through which antagonism shapes thought, legitimizes action, and perpetuates itself across generations. The objective is not to judge but to expose how conflict becomes self-sustaining, how violence evolves from an instrument into a ritual, and how contradiction becomes the very foundation upon which societies act in ways that betray their own professed values.
1
Conflict, when stripped down to its structure, is less an event than a language. Conflict is learned, repeated, and transmitted—not as instinct alone but as a structured framework through which people interpret events and justify actions. Violence is only one expression of conflict; beneath the act lies a sequence of ideas and reactions that not only precede violence but also weave hostility deliberately into a fabric of continuity. Understanding this grammar of conflict is essential, because it shows how human beings can remain locked in cycles of harm long after the original reasons have disappeared—not by accident, but because the rhetoric sustaining conflict extends the original violence far beyond its initial cause. What appears spontaneous is often scripted, and what seems inevitable is, more often than not, the cumulative result of choices that have hardened into reflex.
2
Hatred is the first syntax of this grammar. Conflict does not erupt suddenly but accumulates over time, layer upon layer, through memory, myth, and selective narration. Conflict is presented as a defense against a perceived threat or subordination; yet its deeper function is preservation. Hatred sustains identity by defining itself against what it is not. Conflict, once entrenched, ceases to depend on immediate threat. Conflict becomes self-justifying. It becomes a lens that reinterprets evidence in conformity with its narrative and expectations. Conflict prepares the ground on which it thrives and provides ready-made explanations for future disputes.
3
Victimhood gives hatred an enduring vocabulary. It converts the suffering from a past event into a permanent political and social resource. Suffering is a condition we all inhabit. Yet to make suffering the core of collective identity is strategic. Suffering allows communities to claim moral authority and to legitimize otherwise illegitimate actions. The story of injury becomes a foundation for retaliation. Herein, however, lies a trap: identity anchored in victimhood threatens the cessation of its narrative. Without the presence of an adversary, legitimacy loses potency. The original wound remains open—remembered and weaponized for all that follows. Each new act of aggression is framed as a defense of dignity and as a reaffirmation of suffering.
4
Hypocrisy is the structure holding this system together. Hypocrisy enables simultaneous denunciation and deployment of violence. It is a proclamation of ideals systematically violated. Hypocrisy not only conceals contradiction; it embodies it. It is, in fact, a vain attempt to invoke justice, to speak of universal rights, and to decry cruelty. The resulting duplicity is essential. Hypocrisy presents violence as a legitimate principle, domination as protection, and exclusion as necessity.
5
Once hatred, victimhood, and hypocrisy have aligned, violence becomes a ritual—not a reaction. This ritual can claim instrumental goals: the recovery of lost territory, the righting of past wrongs, or the assurance of safety. But over time, the purpose fades and the pattern remains. Each act tries to confirm the legitimacy of the last and to prepare a justification for the next. The cycle no longer requires triggers; conflict sustains itself through momentum. Violence becomes a means through which the collective is used to consolidate identity and to institutionalize memory.
6
Tribalism is a ritual of emotional power. Conflict reduces the complexity of human experience to affiliation and exclusion. Within this framework, radically different standards judge shifting actions according to who commits them. What outsiders called terrorism becomes a defensive force within the tribe. The tyranny of an enemy becomes the tribe’s strength. Tribalism turns contradiction into coherence; it makes hypocrisy acceptable; it transforms violence into allegiance and reprisal into obligation. The more deeply divisions define a society, the more indispensable conflict becomes to its sense of purpose.
7
Violence is no longer a response; it is a condition. Violence persists not because it serves immediate goals, but because it affirms permanence. Ending a cycle means dismantling its sustaining narratives; it means acknowledging an enemy is not immutable; victimhood is no longer unique; ideals no longer coexist with betrayals.
8
The illusion of inevitability is insidious. If conflict frames destiny, accountability dissolves. Reaction explains every action as defensive. Herein, recognition diminishes agency; violence becomes not a choice but a forced external condition, an illusion allowing the cycle to continue.
9
Breaking the continuation is neither difficult nor mysterious. Hatred as an explanation simplifies and legitimizes the narrative; it offers ideological reassurance; it sustains a false sense of control. Together they form a system that seems natural, but familiarity is not fate. The grammar of conflict is learned; what is learned can be unlearned. The first step is to elucidate and to recognize what seems inevitable is only a choice disguised as a reaction. Thus societies can construct new grammars, without enmity, without vengeance, and without domination.
10
To diagnose conflict is not to diminish suffering or to excuse violence. An understanding of how suffering and violence endure reveals that each helps to sustain the other. Profound injuries are not those inflicted once but are those kept alive by stories repeated about them. The cycle endures because unreason has its own reason; it preserves the stories that keep us injured and persuades us of their necessity. It is not that people act without reason, but that they rationalize the irrational until irrationality itself becomes the organizing principle of their behavior. Exposing their grammar is not a solution, but it is a beginning: a way to make visible the architecture of antagonism and, perhaps, to imagine forms of coexistence that no longer depend on perpetual conflict for their justification.
Edited by Billy Bussell Thompson, Oct. 9, 2025, NYC, NY
Observations On Perception 