Explain the Meaning of the Following Passage from Simmel's, the Stranger:The

question 1

Essay

Explain the meaning of the following passage from Simmel's, The Stranger:The stranger is near and far at the same time, as in any relationship based on merely universal human similarities. Between these two factors of nearness and distance, however, a peculiar tension arises, since the consciousness of having only the absolutely general in common has exactly the effect of putting a special emphasis on that which is not common. For a stranger to the country, the city, the race, and so on, what is stressed is again nothing individual, but alien origin, a quality which he has, or could have, in common with many other strangers. For this reason strangers are not really perceived as individuals, but as strangers of a certain type. Their remoteness is no less general than their nearness.

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Definitions:

Income Elasticity

A measure of how much the demand for a good or service changes in response to changes in the consumer's income.

Midpoint Method

A technique used to calculate the percentage change between two values, avoiding the problem of path dependency by using the average of the initial and final values as the base.