"Mankind invents things to fight about"
About this Quote
Coming from Mike Love, it reads like a late-20th-century pop-cultural hangover: post-Vietnam disillusionment, Cold War paranoia, culture-war churn, and the way mass media turns every difference into a team sport. The Beach Boys’ brand is sunlit harmony; the subtext here is that harmony is fragile and, worse, unfashionable. A voice associated with good vibrations quietly admits how hard it is to keep them going when society keeps rewarding antagonism.
The line also works because it refuses to pick a side. It doesn’t blame a villain; it implicates the species. That broadness is the point: the quote diagnoses a pattern in how we build identity. If there isn’t a ready-made enemy, we’ll draft one, because opposition clarifies who “we” are. It’s compact, bleak, and catchy - the kind of lyric-ready cynicism that sticks because it feels like something you’ve watched happen in real time.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Love, Mike. (2026, January 16). Mankind invents things to fight about. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/mankind-invents-things-to-fight-about-127783/
Chicago Style
Love, Mike. "Mankind invents things to fight about." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/mankind-invents-things-to-fight-about-127783/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Mankind invents things to fight about." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/mankind-invents-things-to-fight-about-127783/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.









