Word Of The Week

agon

agon \AH-gahn; ah-GOHN\,
plural agones \uh-GOH-neez\ noun:
A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between
the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.

Conflicts about moral claims are part of what it means to
be human, and a political ideal stripped of sentimentality
and the utopian temptation is one committed to the notion
that political life is a permanent agon between clashing,
even incompatible goods.
--Jean Bethke Elshtain, [1]Real Politics

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Agon comes from Greek agon, "a struggle or contest."
It is related to agony.