Us vs Them
A Case For Social Empathy
Description:... The modern city is a place of social circles; clusters of contacts who
know each other and strangers who don’t. It is a place where diverse
relationships are in decline. In the city, strangers seldom meet beyond
daily functions. Instead they brush by with a haste and preoccupation
that so defines a century of ‘too little time’. Where once we valued
common courtesy, now we encourage the message of “stranger danger”.
Often we do not test this message as we grow older. Instead we live sideby side with strangers, and remain firmly as ever, psychologically
miles apart.
In this book I attempt to address this problem. I ask the following questions:
1) How can we bring back mutual understanding, empathy and common concern between ourselves, strangers and other groups?
2) How can we reduce our instinctual urge to categorise other people?
3) How can we restore a sense of “community” into modern cities?
My own research reveals a large body of evidence leading to a singleconclusion: if we want to connect with strangers in our society, and
form diverse, cohesive communities, we must minimise the categorical
distinctions in our everyday life. We must once again bring people
together, in close physical proximity, even if they are from different
segments of society.
We can use physical proximity to overcome our natural urges to seek
out ‘one of our own’ and foster communities that are more diverse and
inclusive by nature. By bringing disparate groups into the same space,
we can foster mutual understanding, empathy and in some cases
friendship. This could mend some of the categorical division that existsin society today, including issues of racism, sexism and religious
intolerance.
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