In most cases, what is called the lust and passion of legal quarrels is probably something quite different, namely, a strong feeling of justice or the impossibility of bearing an actual or alleged interference with the sphere of law with which the ego feels identified. All the uncompromising stubbornness and obstinacy with which parties at a trial so often bleed themselves to death has, even on the defendant's part, hardly the character of an offensive but, in a deeper sense, that of a defensive, since the question is the self-preservation of the person. This self-preservation is so inseparable from the person's possessions and rights that any inroad on them destroys it. It is only consistent to fight with the power of one's whole existence. Hence it probably is this individualistic drive, rather than the sociological drive to fight, which determines such cases.

XREF: Connects to identity psychology and theories of ego-investment in possessions, echoing ideas about property as extension of self.

DEFINE: Reframes apparent legal aggression as defensive self-preservation tied to the ego's identification with rights and property.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 301