Collective emergencies suspend urban anonymity and legitimize open stranger contact

Evidence

Many people have been critical of my effort to save silence by inviting people to One Square Inch and posting its very location on my website. There is no other choice. Either silence changes us or silence will go extinct. If one thousand people walk silently to OSI in a month, could we ask for any greater tribute? Surely the silence of the Hoh Valley would walk out with us. — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 1704 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: City dwellers can assume stranger ratification without a word spoken; Urban life is possible because strangers remain categorically identifiable; Crowds in crisis project their need for protection onto a single figure (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Crowds in crisis project their need for protection onto a single figure #expands (0.55)
• Urban life is possible because strangers remain categorically identifiable #contradicts (0.40)
• Preserving silence paradoxically requires inviting people into it #complicates (0.40) — Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence- One Man’s…, 1704