Almost all relationships have annoyances, unfair treatment, disagreements, differing interests. Whether that fear is a response to actual attacks or just the sense of danger, it is the perception of threat that is key.
Examples can range from name-calling, to betrayal, breaking the law, terrorism.
This violation of legitimate behavior connects with the lack of trust and sense of threat that is part of most conflicts. You may also feel justified then in bending and changing your own sense of right and wrong in self-defense. Parties to a conflict often expect particular action chains. They will have a patterned way of conducting an argument, of escalating conflict, of resolving it. An act of destruction held two different meanings in Hall's example of an Anglo rancher and his angry Chicano neighbors.