“Antagonism (philosophy):
While implying active hostility and resistance, in Marxist philosophy antagonism also describes a mode of destruction and breakdown of contradiction. Antagonism and contradiction are not the same. Contradiction is the unity and struggle of opposites internal to a process that serves as the basis of development. At a certain stage, under definite conditions, the antagonistic mode of destruction destroys the old basic class contradiction.
For instance, the struggle between serfs/peasants and the nobility was the basic contradiction of the system of feudalism. Under feudalism new industrial classes were birthed with the industrial revolution — bourgeoisie (capitalist) and proletariat (industrial worker). The rise to dominance of new classes, new private property relations and new technology destroys and vanquishes the old classes and old institutions of feudal society. This vanquishing is the process of destruction and how society moves in class antagonism.
(See, Leap.)”
Excerpt From: Darryl Mitchell. “Marxist Glossary Mini Edition 3.0.” iBooks.
Marxist Glossary Mini Edition 3.0 can be purchased at Lulu. com
I like this definition from mini-glossary.
Big glossary is even better.
New forms of classes are created by new productive forces, like the industrial revolution and the digital revolution. These new forms of classes are birthed in antagonism with the classes of the old social order. In a society torn by property-based inequality, antagonism is a mode of destruction of the old contradiction.