the place of otherness in the era of individualism

A few years ago, I sat alone at an outdoor café in Porto. The day was cold but sunny. My attention was drawn to a group of six teenage boys who squeezed themselves around a table meant for four, directly across from me. Each clutched his own mobile phone, and they engaged in a curious ritual—hurling insults, congratulations, and expletives at one another while their thumbs and eyes remained locked on their luminous screens. I deduced they were playing the same game simultaneously, as they made references to scores and rankings.

Though they had arrived and remained together physically as a group, I had the distinct impression that each was fundamentally alone. The group sustained profound silence for extended periods, punctuated only by rapid, brief, precise, intense, and loud outbursts. There were no responses to these exclamations, making it impossible to discern whether anyone was actually listening.

I found myself reflecting on how different this interaction was from what I remember experiencing as a teenager, gathered around a single screen projecting a game controlled by wired controllers connected to a console. It was a single device that brought us together and connected us—literally. Now, each person has their own device, and detecting the threads that connect them becomes a purely metaphysical exercise. I also noticed how different the interaction among these six teenagers was from what we might call a genuine conversation.

We often hear that we’re losing the ability to converse. The blame is commonly assigned to social media or our growing dependence on mobile phones and screens of various sizes. In truth, the devices that increasingly capture our attention aren’t addictive in themselves. What creates dependency is what they transmit. Answers to our doubts, concerns, and memory lapses appear quickly and precisely. What also creates dependency is the sensation of connection with others, distant or nearby, who reward us with thumbs-up icons or something equivalent. But are we truly connected, without visible wires? Do radio waves have the property of connecting us? What gets lost in the translation from analogical to digital? The “blame” is often on the “digital” aspect when, what seems to be the case, the aspect that conveys more distance between people is the difference between wired or wireless connections, and the sophistication of the latter.

It’s often said that we live in the age of individualism. I would add that we live in the era of the individualistic individual. The devices that accompany us and the networks that feed them lead us to interact, yes, but not to converse. Conversation comes from the Latin conversatio, meaning “to live with; to meet frequently.” The Latin word is formed by joining “com-“ (together) with “vertere” (to turn, to turn toward). Therefore, a conversation implies that participants turn toward each other, together. Such an exercise requires attention undistracted by any device and dedication—an effort to encounter another, different person. Here is a possible definition of an exercise in otherness: to encounter the other, necessarily different from ourselves.

the inner world and its development

To understand why true conversation matters so profoundly, we must first recognize how our capacity for meaningful connection emerges. As psychoanalyst João Seabra Diniz observes, “Our inner world had its beginning in the experience of contact with another, when our history begins, when silence is broken by a voice that speaks to us.”

Our internal lives develop through our earliest interactions. In these inaugural experiences, our significant ones attentively understand and respond to our infantile needs harmoniously, opportunely, and sensitively. From this dance of responsiveness emerges what psychoanalysts call the “hallucinatory satisfaction of desire,” which initiates the construction of personhood and the vast process of understanding the world.

For each sensory discomfort experienced by a child, whether hunger or another need, the significant ones, “feeling what the child feels,” bring the solution that restores equilibrium. With the repetition of this intimate encounter, we can imagine that when the baby feels the same discomfort again, it desires to rediscover the satisfaction obtained “in the past,” which the attentive other brings in the “present.” All this occurs in harmony between the adult’s voice and the care they provide, and the baby’s reactions and signals.

As this process continues, the child discovers the other as distinct and different, yet similar—a being with their own internal world of feelings, desires, and experiences of pleasure and suffering. Through this discovery, meaningful contacts are established, and a system of communication organizes itself, beginning with the exchange of affects and fantasies before eventually including verbal expression.

the internal foundation of conversation

The type of interaction that social media stimulates reveals a form of message exchange that doesn’t align with the definition of conversation as established through our developmental history. Even outside digital networks, in physical presence, the same dynamic often takes hold. A space where each participant waits their turn to speak is not a real conversation. A space where silence is individually occupied by preparation for what one wants to say, rather than by seeking to understand and clearly respond to what is being said, is not a conversation.

Yet, we are trained to give the impression that we’re listening when, in reality, we’re merely waiting to speak. We’re prepared to show that we’re including others when, in truth, we’re alone with the pretense of entertaining and convincing with our ideas. This posture demonstrates not an interest in otherness but reveals an inability to move beyond individuality.

A conversation, to be good and rich, is not merely entertainment. It involves effort, dedication, and a good dose of self-abnegation. In his “Essays,” Montaigne said that the main reason conversations become unsatisfactory is that many people become defensive when their viewpoints are questioned. To truly converse, we must decenter ourselves. Are we capable of conversing in our teams, our families, our schools, our relationships?

the paradox of solitude and connection

“I consider that the capacity to be alone is the foundation of the capacity to be well, in intimacy, with someone,” writes Diniz. “And the capacity to be alone requires a certain way of experiencing silence.”

This apparent paradox—that the ability to be alone underlies the ability to be intimate with another—points to a profound truth about human connection. We’re never truly alone, even when by ourselves, because we’re always in the presence of our own internal world, populated by a complex collection of feelings, memories, and experiences organized into a coherent unity by our sense of identity.

Two people can only build a genuine feeling of proximity from the richness of each one’s inner experience and with clarity about what each feels and is. The lived sensation of this reciprocal clarity permits a tranquil knowledge and effective communication without confusion between persons. It constructs a relationship of intimacy. Silence becomes the language of those who are intimate.

This capacity for genuine intimacy—built upon self-knowledge and the ability to be present with another—stands in stark contrast to contemporary understandings of “authenticity.” While true intimacy requires us to recognize both our inner experience and the other’s distinct reality, today’s discourse often conflates authenticity with merely asserting one’s subjective perspective. The rich inner clarity that enables deep connection becomes reduced to the shallow proclamation of “my truth.” ¹

on integrity in the era of authenticity

I am astonished by the number of people around me who are “in search of their truth” or who, having already found it, use it as an argument equivalent to those used in a childish tantrum: “(…) well, but it’s my truth,” as if to say “too bad” or “yes, because I say so.” Judging by the number of references to this phenomenon that I hear almost daily, it seems to me that the salvation of our species will be achieved when we can find ourselves, truly. We will have saved ourselves when we are capable of being authentic.

Aligning with the trend and seeking authenticity, what I feel about this is irritation rather than astonishment. The irritation is similar to what I felt regarding other previous trends. Remember when we always had to “think outside the box” as much as possible? Then, often in conjunction with the former, it was essential that we “step outside our comfort zone.” Now, own truth and authenticity appear as the cure for humanity’s ills.

I see at least two significant obstacles to the hypothesis of authenticity as a solution. The first lies in the idea that the search for authenticity seems to be an individual and individualistic exercise. I don’t believe that we, as a species, have sufficient maturity to enable the whole to be saved by the sum of its parts. What is observed in most parts is, increasingly, “every man for himself” and “me first, before anyone else.” The second obstacle, which reinforces the first, is that truth is relative. Beyond this obviousness—is this still an obvious idea?—truth is increasingly called into question. It’s increasingly easy to take a lie as its opposite and increasingly difficult to trust what is known to be true.

knowledge versus wisdom in conversation

Of all the things we learn in this world, as Diniz notes, “only those that, besides knowing, we also manage to feel are truly useful to us. These become part of us and contribute to what we are—that is, they contribute to our personal experience. The other things we know, but which remain distant from what we feel, represent knowledge but will never become wisdom. Because things known only gain meaning after being felt.”

This distinction illuminates why so many conversations feel hollow despite containing abundant information. Knowledge without feeling—facts without resonance—creates exchanges that may be factually correct but humanly impoverished. The things “known” because they were “felt” can be assimilated in depth and allow us to learn—in the deepest sense of the word—from experience. This knowledge becomes a personal patrimony that isn’t lost, even if the external actions to which it was connected must be abandoned. It remains as an acquired personal richness, becoming a new capacity open to other acquisitions.

Consider the following hypothesis: the skills that, for example, a psychotherapist must develop and that make her recognized and good at performing her activity are very close to those that a con artist must refine to be successful. Let’s see: in both activities, conversation is used to achieve the desired results. Being a craftsman of conversation implies: activating attention and concentration, demonstrating listening capacity, empathizing and understanding, revealing interest and captivating the interest of the other; it also involves being capable of improvising and adapting to the other and their context. All these dimensions will serve different purposes with the same convenience, even if they are as disparate as helping and supporting or deceiving and convincing.

Where, then, does the difference lie? I believe we will find it in the moral dimension. The difference between a (good) psychotherapist and a (“good”) con artist lies, fundamentally, in the intention and integrity of one and the other. While the interest of the first should be promoting the well-being of the other, the intention of the second is personal gain at the expense of others.

the language of silence in human connection

“Intimacy requires knowing how to listen and knowing one is being listened to. It requires a positive perception of the other’s inner world, which happens in silence. Silence is the language of intimates when it is not emptiness, but a living silence, because each knows what the other feels or thinks, and therefore it isn’t necessary to fill with words a space that would be disturbing between two people in the absence of true intimacy.”

This understanding of silence as the language of intimates offers a profound counterpoint to our culture of perpetual noise and constant digital notifications. The quality of our attention, our willingness to be fully present, becomes a force as real as gravity, bending the fabric of our shared experience. In genuine conversation, silence isn’t an absence or void to be filled but a fertile space where meaning germinates and understanding deepens.

The encounter of intimacy with another, to be truly satisfying, assumes an availability for discovery and a capacity for listening, which, in turn, stems from the peaceful experience of encountering a good object of internal satisfaction, allowing for serenity and joy. It is in silence that we hear the voices of the past. The quality of these voices determines the quality of intimacy established, in continuity with previous experiences.

beyond digital solitude: reclaiming the art of presence

In both our physical and digital interactions, we find ourselves increasingly capable of being present without being present—of occupying space without offering attention. This paradox represents not merely a technological problem but an existential one. The capacity to genuinely turn toward another person requires a form of courage increasingly rare in our individualistic era.

What would happen if we approached each conversation as a temporary abandonment of self-interest? If we treated the space between words as sacred territory where genuinely new understanding might emerge? The Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, writing about Eduardo Lourenço, one of the country’s most renowned intellectuals, states that “listening is not a physiological ability, but an ethical one. And every decent person knows this.” This ethical dimension of conversation transcends both technique and authenticity, pointing instead toward the profound responsibility we bear for one another’s becoming.

The desire for communication with another emerges from this foundation. It is a desire to speak and a desire to listen that leads to an experience of proximity, similarity, harmony—as if listening together to the same internal music, which is the affective resonance of lived experience. It is living peacefully and pleasurably with difference, based on an awareness of similarity.

In this view, the art of conversation becomes not merely a social skill but a profound ethical act—a creation of temporary micro-universes where, for brief moments, we escape our fundamental isolation. In our digitally mediated world, the decision to be fully present, to allow ourselves to be changed by an encounter with otherness rather than merely exchanging information or asserting “our truth.”, is the right and extreme decision. Such presence creates a space where virtue might flourish amidst the perversions of contemporary communication.

In this space, we might rediscover not just conversation but the essence of what makes us human: our capacity to exist meaningfully with and for one another.

This essay builds upon and expands two pieces originally published in Portuguese in 2019–2020, incorporating insights from psychoanalyst João Seabra Diniz’s work on intimacy and silence from 2017. While technology continues to evolve, the philosophical questions about how we converse and connect remain timeless.

1. This might help to explain why bullshit, in the Harry G. Frankfurt conception of the concept, is gaining traction in today’s world. But that’s for another dedicated reflection. ↩︎