The stranger’s freedom from commitments enables objective evaluation

Evidence

Objectivity can also be defined as freedom. The objective man is not bound by ties which could prejudice his perception, his understanding, and his assessment of data. This freedom, which permits the stranger to experience and treat even his close relationships as though from a bird’s-eye view, contains many dangerous possibilities. … From earliest times, in uprisings of all sorts the attacked party has claimed that there has been incitement from the outside, by foreign emissaries and agitators. Insofar as this has happened, it represents an exaggeration of the specific role of the stranger: he is the freer man, practically and theoretically; he examines conditions with less prejudice; he assesses them against standards that are more general and more objective; and his actions are not confined by custom, piety, or precedent. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 395 (#expands, via linked claim)

This essential fluidity of our boundaries further implies that we also know our boundaries as such—first the individual and then in general. For only whoever stands outside his boundary in some sense knows that he stands within it, that is, knows it as a boundary. Kaspar Hauser did not know that he was in prison until he came into the open and could see the walls from without. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 787 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Stranger objectivity is freedom from perceptual and normative bias — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 395; Self-knowledge of one’s limits requires a vantage point outside them — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 787

Related

• Stranger objectivity is freedom from perceptual and normative bias (similarity 0.92)
• Self-knowledge of one’s limits requires a vantage point outside them (similarity 0.85)
• One can only recognize a boundary by stepping outside of it (similarity 0.84)
• Objectivity is freedom from commitment-biased perception (similarity 0.80)
• The privileged narrator’s blindness resides in his own point of view. (similarity 0.79)
• The self discovers itself only in situation and must alone sustain all values (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Stranger objectivity is freedom from perceptual and normative bias #expands (0.90) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 395
• Self-knowledge of one’s limits requires a vantage point outside them #corroborates (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 787