In this post, I posit the concept – the Estranged – as a dialectical opposite to Simmel’s concept of the Stranger. If the stranger is remembered for his ‘distance’ from the (host) group, the estranged is remembered for his ‘departure’ from the (reference) group.
Simmel defined the Stranger as an “organic member of the group” (p. 149), who “comes today and stays tomorrow”[1] (p. 143), who is defined by his “nearness” over “remoteness” to the group (p. 143), who brings “qualities into it (the group) that are not, and cannot be, indigenous to it” (p. 143), which make him “attractive and meaningful” (p.145), whose “objectivity” that is by no means “detachment and non-participation” (p. 145) lend as “specific form” to his interaction with the group (p. 143) by “both being outside it and confronting it” (p. 146). A stranger is “freer practically and theoretically; he surveys conditions with less prejudice; his criteria for them are more general and more objective ideals; he is not tied down in his action by habit, piety, and precedent” (p. 146).
[1] as opposed to a wanderer “who comes today and leaves tomorrow” (p. 143) Continue reading “The Stranger and The Estranged”
