The Pendulum of Society

The fact of human conflict is one that people have been trying to solve, or ignore, or come to terms with for a long, long time. Why is there this conflict? Where does it stem from? People often quote historical reasons, especially for large-scale conflicts, but this is a temporary solution. These historical conflicts, where do they stem from? And some conflicts don't even seem to have a historical reference to them. So why and how is this a constant and continual problem?

Of course, conflict between two parties of indeterminate size can take an infinite number of iterations to become selectively unique for each possible case. Generalizations are useful, but they blur lines. However, there seem to be common themes:

1. Us vs Them: People make friends, build connections, create social lives. This is an inevitable part of being a "fully functioning" human being in today's global capitalist society. However, the creation of groups of "friends" inevitably leaves the rest of the people as "not friends". This is initially harmless; but, the system is that of a mathematically unstable "Inverted Pendulum". A little nudge in the direction of concretization and hostilization of the outside group will continue to lead to negative feelings until it culminates into two distinct parties. If we continue along this route, it becomes an ironic situation, where a group of people split themselves into halves multiple times based on multiple factors, such as first religion, then gender, then political affiliations... ect. Eventually you have a situation where in trying to gain friends you have successfully alienated yourself and others completely because everyone is somehow now on the "other side".
2. Lack of Communication: A misunderstanding is also a common root cause of such things. People's severely limited physical means of expressing data and information (not to mention the highly dubious way of absorbing said "information") allow for error to add upon error and hence conflict to grow. This is usually done first to one side, where they misinterpret the true meaning of a message and respond harshly. Repeat. Or they don't respond at all, and the frustration of the event can have future consequences if the first party remains oblivious to the danger. Of course, lack of communication also manifests in convoluted information flows, allowing indirect (and hence, heavily distorted) data to come to one party. The party then forms conclusions based on aforementioned data and voila: resentment seeds planted.
3. General Negative View of Fellow Humans and Their Flaws: What people seem to be largely unable to do is comprehend their own limits. One can only imagine how poor their judgement for other human beings is. Hence, it's a 50/50 chance of someone forming high expectations based on a limited data set. When these expectations aren't met, there is disappointment, or, in extreme cases, resentment. Sometimes one incident is enough, sometimes it takes multiple incidents, but in any case, the result remains virtually the same. The problem here is that people cannot seem to accept that humans are beautiful simply because they don't meet your expectations. It shows there's more to them then you where originally able to discern.

Hopefully, someday, people will actively try to eliminate these conflicts to ensure not only a better live for themselves in the long run, but also for everyone else. Unfortunately, I highly doubt this; it only takes one. One person to get mad. One person to push a bit. And down swings the pendulum.