Talking to Strangers

By Danielle Allen

University of Chicago Press 2004 Hardcover Buy here

Book Review
Reviewed by Jennifer Edwards

On a hot, sunny day in an arid West Texas town, a crowd was growing beneath the shade of a covered picnic area.

As the crowd gathered, and the volume grew, and neighbors slapped each other on the back and laughed with one another, a larger group solidified, leaving smaller particles behind.

The bulk, comprised mainly of residents of the town’s mostly black Southside community, grew louder as they waited for the announcement.

The few whites in attendance were quiet, unconsciously drawing together.

The men hoisting the television cameras, an anchorwoman from the local television station and myself, the sole newspaper reporter, shifted a bit as the atmosphere electrified.

From time to time, members of both groups cast a glance across the street at the neighborhood boys and girls’ club, a well-worn building showing its age.

Finally, JoAnn Davenport, president of the town’s Black Cultural Council and the director of a group that volunteered at the center, called for silence.

“I called this meeting because I got concerns,” she said. “And I don’t want to do this behind closed doors.”

Davenport detailed her concerns: The center provided valuable child and recreational care for the community’s children, and it was rumored that its hours might be cut back. The building itself was in disrepair, there were worries that lunch wouldn’t be served this summer, and many felt that the children, mostly black, didn’t receive the same benefits as the children who went to the other center, situated in a mostly white neighborhood.

That’s why she called the meeting, she explained. To tell the media about the problems, because the administration (all-white), probably wouldn’t do anything about them. 

Though she had not informed the administration of the impromptu press conference, Kelly Koepp, the executive director of the Odessa Boys and Girls’ Club arrived shortly before the announcement, flustered and nearly engulfed in tears by the group’s stinging accusations.

“This is the first I heard about your concerns,” she said. “We can’t do anything about them if you don’t tell us.”

In the end, the community’s concerns were addressed. Hours weren’t cut; lunch was served during the summer, as it had been the year before, and the maintenance issues would be looked into.

But, said Koepp, the administration had planned on doing those things before the meeting.
 
And while the meeting resolved the issues, it left a deeper fissure between the community and its administration.

More importantly, it left Koepp’s question unanswered – “Why didn’t you come to us first?”

Why indeed?

Danielle S. Allen, author of “Talking to Strangers” would probably say distrust, and a breakdown in a political system that forced one group to sacrifice too much and others to sacrifice too little.

It is the aim of Allen’s book, published in 2004 by the University of Chicago Press, to both recognize such flaws as mistrust and unequal sacrifice currently inherent in the democratic political system and to address those ills, through cultivation of personal responsibility and citizenship traits.

It’s a personal battle, and not one that can be legislated, as Brown vs. Board of Education proved through what remains even today only a partial victory.

The titular admonishment, to talk to ‘strangers,’ that is, members of other communities, neighborhoods and cultural traditions, is at the heart of any remedy we can hope to bring forth, according to Allen, because what exists in the nation today is a state in which we mistrust others, particularly those we do not know. That is, other citizens, and particularly other citizens of different races.

With the Texas holiday Juneteenth (June 19, the date that Union soldiers arrived in Galveston to enforce abolition) just past, and the 58th anniversary of the Battle of Little Rock (September 4, the day black students attempted to attend school at previously all-white high schools) just around the corner, Allen’s well-worded and well-argued essay is a timely tome.

It’s a current concern, but it’s a perennial one too, Allen says; mistrust and equality are issues that must continually be addressed.

And so must misconceptions about being a good citizen.

“First, citizenship is not ... a matter of institutional duties but of how one learns to negotiate loss and reciprocity,” she writes. “Second, unrestrained self-interest does not make the world go round but corrodes the bases of trust. The ability to adopt equitable self-interest in one’s interactions with strangers is the only mark of a truly democratic citizen...”

Thus, talking to strangers becomes a metaphor for cultivating a democratic friendship that does not necessarily connote affection, but rather respect – respect for others, and through it, respect for oneself. 

“Don’t talk to strangers,” she asserts, “is a lesson for four-year-olds ... The more fearful we citizens are of speaking to strangers, the more we are docile children ...” (Pp. 162)

Instead, she argues, we must talk to strangers. We must treat them with fairness, with consideration and with recognition. And we must treat them as friends, though Allen postulates a new mode of friendship.

While that may seem at first a difficult concept – and it’s not, once you boil through Allen’s essay and get to the practical way to achieve this – there’s an even more difficult citizenship trait all must master.

Sacrifice.

Sacrifice, says Allen, is essential for both good citizenship and a functional society. And, like taxes, sacrifice and disappointment are required of everyone, as is the recognition of sacrifice and the necessity of sacrifice being shared equally.

While the common-sense advice of befriending one’s neighbor is nothing new, and neither is the notion of sacrifice (Do the injunctions “Serve your country” or “Honor our troops who serve” sound familiar?),  Allen brings a wealth of philosophy to the table to map out how, precisely, one can do that.

As the dean of the division of he Humanities at the University of Chicago, and a professor in its Classical Languages and Literature Departments, and a participant in its Committee on Social Thought – not to mention a previous book on Athenian politics, Allen brings impressive experience to the task of defining citzenship.
 
Though Allen’s command of democratic philosophy, from Aristotle to Hobbes to, more recently, Habermas, is impressive, and a lesson in and of itself, it’s the practical advice she culls from the liberal tradition that gives the book its oomph.                                                         

Admittedly, Allen’s exhaustive development of the ideals of citizenship might at times seem a little too in-depth to someone without a well-developed interest in philosophy, she sets forth very basic ideals in that well-constructed framework. And with those ideals, she suggests techniques for acquiring them. And while getting to those citizenship techniques may sometimes seem tedious, there are two reasons to benefit from that advice. And, of deep importance, both have to do with self-interest rather than altruism.

The first reason is perhaps the most compelling: the changing face of our nation. Whether one is currently in an ethnic minority or majority, his or her children will not be, the U.S. government states. According to its 2000 Census, while only 30 percent of the population currently belongs to a minority ethnic group (a term Allen takes issue with, by the way), by 2100 those current minorities are expected to expand to 60 percent of the population.

That, in effect, makes it in everyone’s best interest to take a lesson from “the other side” because the next generation will, in effect, become that other side.

The second reason to learn from this work is much more immediate, and more immediately gratifying: it engenders self-confidence, according to Allen.

“Talking to strangers is a way of claiming one’s political majority and, with it, a presidential ease and sense of freedom,” she writes.