Explain and compare Georg Simmel’s notion of the stranger and social distance to W. E. B. Du Bois’s concepts of the veil and double consciousness.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• Simmel explored distance in terms of value and interaction. He claimed that the things that are valuable to us are typically farther from us. Simmel also talked about interaction and distance, enlisting the role of the stranger. Simmel’s stranger does not have a race or gender.
• Strangers are close enough to have contact with a group, but still distant enough that relationships are objective and patterned, for example, when strangers are trusted with confidences.
• Du Bois, on the other hand, showed the alienating impact of racism for Black Americans through his concepts of the veil and double consciousness. Du Bois used the metaphor of a veil to show the sociostructural separation between Black and White. Double consciousness is a concept that shows the sociopsychological consequences: Blacks, who stand outside of dominant White society, see themselves through their own community and the dominant society. This twoness provides two forms of consciousness, a feeling of being split in two.
• Students might compare the levels of analysis (Simmel’s stranger is much more micro-interactional, while Du Bois shows the impact of structure), how embodiment impacts theory (e.g., Simmel does not include gender or race), how both draw on psychology and emotion, and so on.