Otherness

Historically, we have been conditioned to view people who are different from us as "others." In past cultures, our survival depended on group solidarity and protecting ourselves from outsiders. Even in modern society, we have often been taught to fear, hate, and even dehumanize those who do not share our beliefs, attitudes, or values. This has led to a great deal of division and conflict in the world.

  • It is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of strangeness and hostility between them.

    Sigmund Freud

  • All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart.

    Elizabeth Goudge

  • The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.

    Willa Cather

  • No one else has access to the world you carry around within yourself; you are its custodian and entrance… Thus it is impossible to ever compare two people because each stands on such different ground. When you compare yourself to others, you are inviting envy into your consciousness; it can be a dangerous and destructive guest.

    John O'Donohue

  • In daily life we never understand each other, neither complete clairvoyance nor complete confessional exists. We know each other approximately, by external sign…, mutual secrecy being one of the conditions of life upon this globe.

    E.M. Forster

  • We are all each of us riddles, when unknown one to the other. The plain map of human powers and purposes, helps us not at all to thread the labyrinth each individual presents in his involution of feelings, desires and capacities

    Mary Shelley

  • And that might just be the root of the problem: we’re all afraid of each other

    Leslye Walton