The Desire For Conflict

Irrationality makes conflict necessary in order to live for the truth, and a lack of error (strictly logical or moral, which is also governed by logical truths) makes it irrational to act as if there is something to despise or confront when there is not.  Conflict is needed in order to defend or affirm the truth to those who disregard it, yes, and some people of varying worldviews, not all of them rationalists, might find it alluring to have intense exchanges with others.  Non-rationalists or people who know reason and yet deviate from it in a given case are the very reason why we need to confront anyone in the first place, and yet conflict can be a highly controversial or painful thing even when it is legitimate.

To not shirk from conflict and even to embrace or enjoy conflict cannot be problematic as long as one is fully rational and righteous through it all, making no assumptions, denying no truths, not sinking into emotionalism, and never seeking out a chance for psychological brutality where there is no need for conflict.  Failure to abide by these basic but significant restrictions is what makes some people conflate conflict for arrogance and confrontation with intensity disproportionate to the nature of the issue in question.  Conflict itself is not brutality, not that brutality is automatically emotionalistic or unjust.  Stupidity makes everything from mild correction to fierce verbal condemnation, the latter being more brutal, valid whenever irrationalism is adhered to.

A rationalist could even come to grow deep, penetrating, constant pleasure from the thought or experience of showing rational harshness towards lesser people, people who flee from or neglect the necessary truths of reason and entire issues like epistemology, God's nature, and morality that hinge on them.  Some might not even have to struggle with fighting the urge to be in conflict just to feel this kind of empowerment and enjoyment, but it would still have to be the case that anyone who did fight this never stir up or desire conflict just to obtain more pleasure.  To wish for someone to hold to a philosophical error or to perform a misdeed for the sake of rightly opposing them is itself irrational.

The desire for conflict is not something everyone can relate to, and for those who do, it is not necessarily experienced with the same motivations or ferocity from one person to another.  In all cases, it must still not be allowed to drive a person to hope for others to err or to be confrontational where there is no evidence of anything meriting this interaction.  Conflict can be rational, morally obligatory, and even personally pragmatic (though this never could justify engaging in it for sole reasons of subjective preference); it is nothing to reject in itself.  The absence of conflict can also be rational, obligatory, and pragmatic, and it is also nothing to reject simply because it is the absence of conflict.  Personality and emotion do not change these truths in either direction.