Loss of Others

Something has happened to our understanding of others. We have lost the value of interrelationships, concern and care. A sort of social autism has replace the gentility and civility which was once the mark of our good people who saw others as more than communal objects. Our communities have also changed having become utility institutions that are tasked with getting what we need or want. Text, tweet and, with all the forms of communication available to us, it seems that asking for sacrificial assistance from others is only manifest within mutual needs relationships. We are in a perpetual competition and covet the ascendency over others. Others have been lost from our lives. True proximity and mutual concern, which once openly bound us to one another, is being lost, and, through this neglect, each of us thereby forfeits our distinctiveness. We no longer draw identity from being communal people and often aggressively rebuke those that we do not need. This book is concerned with attitude and some of the manifestations of this breach in communal life and how we may restore ourselves and others that have been lost.