# Don't Talk with Strangers By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2023-11-28 Often in childhood, parents will tell their children that they shouldn’t talk to strangers. This is perplexing advice. If a stranger is anybody that one doesn’t know, if one never talks to strangers, one will never meet anybody new. Maybe this is close to what parents want. Maybe parents want to control and limit the social circle of one’s children. Perhaps this is simply designed to keep children safe in a complex and dangerous world. Maybe the advice would be better phrased as talk to new children within your age group with wild abandon and get to know who you enjoy and what you like, but beware of strange adults that show too much interest in you. Since that advice would be too long for children to follow, the parent says don’t talk to strangers. This is understandable to the degree this is designed to keep children safe. However, as adults, we often carry vestiges of our childhoods. We tend to have deep biological and sociological fears of those we don’t know. Strangers scare us. And yet, all new friendships emerge from people who were initially strangers. We developed the friendship through talking, getting to know each other, and doing things together. This happens in the office as well as the playground. Our society is such a low-trust culture that imagining it could be any different is difficult. It can be. In high-trust cultures, one does not assume or expect the worst from each other. One assumes one can trust the other human because they are in solidarity with us. This is not our culture. And the data from our culture is undoubtedly mixed (at best). Increasingly, it seems, our culture is violent and angry. The individualism of our beloved mythologies does not seem to be helping us address this deterioration in our society. A collection of individuals is surrounded by strangers to whom we shouldn’t talk. We need a society filled with brothers and sisters with whom we share and overcome the struggles of existence. Solidarity is needed if we are to overcome the anger and violence that plague us now. So don’t talk to strangers unless you want to replace fear with solidarity. #### Related Items [[Solidarity]] [[Society]] [[Fear]] [[Strangers]] [[Individuals]] [[Culture]]