Walt Whitman celebrated what all people have in common in the paradoxically titled poem, "Song of Myself."
Turns out that we're even more intimately entwined that he suspected.
Nicholas Christakis explored that idea in Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.
Duncan Watts has plowed the same ground even more thoroughly in his new book, Everything Is Obvious Once You Know The Answer.
I mention both books because they make essentially the same point -- as Christakis put it in a review of Watt's book, social systems sometimes trump our individual common sense through processes like "self-reinforcing cascades in which outcomes feedback on themselves, or non-linear dynamics, in which small changes in input can lead to large changes in output."
In other words, the groups we belong to play a larger role in what we think and how we behave than we realize. That's especially true when dealing with people who are clearly outsiders, the so-called "Other."
Evolutionary psychologists have come to the conclusion that human beings are hard-wired to live and work in groups. An important corollary to that tendency is that we're also hard-wired to be suspicious -- and even hostile -- towards people who are not in the group.
Understanding both those instincts is key to understanding what may superficially appear as personal and individual thoughts, actions and intentions.
Only then, are we capable of recognizing ourselves in the Other and the Other in ourselves.
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