Simmel's Definition Of The Stranger
Simmel’s definition of the stranger isn’t in a literal sense of a person, but instead the classification and impact of a person being a stranger. How the role of strangers is acting like the thread that connects everybody. Simmel first talks about the difference between the wanderer and stranger. A wanderer is “the liberation from every given point in space, and the conceptional opposite to fixation at a point.” (Simmel) The “stranger” is the “unity of these two characteristics.” (Simmel) What Simmel is saying that as a wanderer you “come today and leave tomorrow”, but as the stranger you “come today and stay tomorrow”. (Simmel) This is the basic of what a stranger is. Simmel then begins to go more in depth after that the stranger is fixed