Enforced physical proximity to strangers generates mutual consideration

Evidence

For many people, myself included, public transportation is the last non-transactional space in which we are regularly thrown together with a diverse set of strangers, all of whom have different destinations for different reasons. Strangers have a reality to me on the bus that they cannot have on the freeway, simply because we’ve agreed to be in an enclosed space in which we are subject to each other’s actions. Because we share an understanding that we all need to get where we’re going, for the most part people act respectfully, literally making space for others when necessary. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 449

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader project on attention and world-constitution — the bus as a space where attention is unavoidably social, echoing Odell’s framing of attention as relational rather than private. — connects to: Physical co-presence in shared urban spaces enables worker solidarity among food couriers. — Donatella della Porta et al., Mobilizing Against the Odds: Solidarity…, 64; Physical contact humanizes opponents and enables depolarization — Didier Caluwaerts et al., Deliberation and Polarization: A…, 123