stranger

A stranger is a person who is unknown to another person or group. Because of this unknown status, a stranger may be perceived as a threat until their identity and character can be ascertained. Different classes of strangers have been identified for social science purposes, and the tendency for strangers and foreigners to overlap has been examined. The presence of a stranger can throw an established social order into question, "because the stranger is neither friend nor enemy; and because he may be both". The distrust of strangers has led to the concept of stranger danger (and the expression "don't talk to strangers"), wherein excessive emphasis is given to teaching children to fear strangers despite the most common sources of abduction or abuse being people known to the child. Definitions A stranger is commonly defined as someone who is unknown to another. Since individuals tend to have a comparatively small circle of family, friends, acquaintances, and other people known to them—a few hundred or a few thousand people out of the billions of people in the world—the vast majority of people are strangers to one another. It may also more figuratively refer to a person for whom a concept is unknown, such as describing a contentious subject as "no stranger to controversy," or an unsanitary person as a "stranger to hygiene". A stranger is typically represented as an outsider, and a source of ambivalence, as they may be a friend, an enemy, or both. The word stranger derives from the Middle French word estrangier, meaning a foreigner or alien. The boundaries of what people or groups are considered strangers varies according to circumstances and culture, and those in the fields of sociology and philosophy in a variety of broader contexts. According to sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, every society produces its own strangers, and the natures of "strangeness" is "eminently pliable [and] man-made". Alternatively, Lisa Atwood Wilkinson has written that "[b]y definition, whoever is a stranger to me is someone who is not a philos: a stranger is a person who is not related to me by blood or marriage, not a member of my tribe or ethne, and not a fellow citizen." Another asserts that "[i]t has been argued by many a philosopher that we are all strangers on earth, alienated from others and ourselves even in our own country".