I came across a new word this weekend. It is sonder.
Sonder is the profound, and humbling, realisation that every random passerby is living a life as vivid, complex, and populated with their own ambitions and struggles as your own. Coined by John Koenig in 2012, it describes the awareness that you are not the only "main character" in the world.
While sonder is a neologism (a newly coined word), it is closely related to concepts like empathy. And that is the whole point. We, all of us, have been told by hegemonic neoliberal narratives that what matters most in the world is us. And I do not doubt our own significance. But the "other" people in life - whoever they might be - are just as important, and it is this fact which neoliberalism, fascists and all on the right wing of politics, whether they be Reform, Tory, Restore or Labour, seek to deny.
Sonder reminds us of this essential fact that we are one of many, and all are of equal value. It is a word worth knowing.
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David Foster Wallace touches on the idea in this speech
https://youtu.be/ms2BvRbjOYo?si=K9R9aQTIgnhHgXXc
Empathy, insight, respect, awareness, “woke”. Leading to compassion, care, cohesion and solidarity, in place of fear, alienation, division and atomisation.
Agreed
…..and yet, we are increasingly going the other way?
……..becuase of rising levels of stress and fear etc – this impacts on the amygdala whilst degrading the pre-frontal cortex (which is where empathy arises).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h15QVLXt0DQ
It is almost as if those in power want to degrade people’s levels of empathy.
Thank you.
French sonder, to plumb the depths. Pronounced “sahn-der.” Can be used as a noun or a verb, as you would use the word wonder.
Interesting, because in German this word is used as well as a prefix, although “Sonder-” means something rather negative.
It means special in a way of being different from the Normal.
I like this meaning much more.
That way it at least would be psychologically easier for governments to make “Sondervermögen” (“Special Assets”), an exception to make more debt than allowed under this stupid Debt Brake we have since 2009.
Those Neoliberals really got it framed right to achieve their goal of destroying society.
Although, it might be worth mentioning here that the biggest “Sondervermögen” was created last year under Chancellor Merz.
Merz used it to create 1 trillion €, mainly for, suprise surprise, defense spending.
Merz who was himself ALWAYS against anything that allowed more room to breathe under this drastic debt brake and violently opposed a 100 billion € Sondervermögen that the previous government wanted to introduce to address climate change.
But I’m digressing:
Concerning Framing I’d like it much more if we would call this “Gesellschaftsvermögen” (Society Assets) from now on which comes much closer to the word “sonder” that Richards writing about.
In using more positive words for the important things change is easier to have I think. ^^
Sonder, a bit like the German word sondern, meaning but, although in an exclusive kind of way
Or similar to ‘put asunder’ as in ‘what god has joined together let no man put asunder’, the ‘a’ making it negative, so sunder would be to join together.
I love words.
I like the work ‘cumber’
If unencumbered is to get rid of the baggage in life, cumber must be that unnecessary baggage
I don’t think those that live in the Lake District would agree though – ha ha
Unless you’re a greengrocer!
Everyone is the centre of their own universe. It takes a degree of wisdom to appreciate this. I suspect that’s what sonder means.
True, but not the complete answer in an internet linked world of 8000 million people.
Yes, humans are the most wonderful creatures, quite possibly the only sentient creatures in the cosmos and therefore valuable beyond measure. But we are also conscious social primates who evolved over the last 200k years, and who spent the first 190k of those years living in small hunter-gatherer bands. We have 10 – 30 loved ones and 100 – 300 acquaintances (see Dunbar limit). So 99.999996% of people in the world are strangers, most of whom we will never meet. Unless you are willing to share your bed and front door keys with a different stranger every 400 milliseconds you have to give preferential treatment to those you know and love over strangers in far-away lands. And homophily (the sociological principle that individuals associate with similar others ie “birds of a feather flock together”) is a real feature of the human condition. 98.9% of couples in the UK are monoethnic (ie white european with white european, chinese with chinese etc). Only 1.4% of USA couples marry someone >= 20 years different in age. Other factors, (e.g. culture, education, wealth, sexual orientation etc) profoundly influence how we interact. Consciousness might also place an upper limit on our data handling capacity and therefore explain why we feel uncomfortable amongst strangers. So ‘cultural ethnocentric behaviour’ isn’t racism, it’s an inherent feature of the human condition. Different societal micro-groupings may simply have incommensurable views.
Any new politics that aims to replace the ‘one-size-fits-all’ beliefs of liberalism, communism and fascism must recognise the constraints and problems arising from us being social primates living in globalised world of instant communication
[…] Word of the day: sonder Richard Murphy […]
The polar opposite of solipsism.
I am reminded of a line once read and not forgotten: “Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.” ~Iris Murdoch in The Black Prince
True