We need to talk about the other. The other in myself, the other in the city, the other that lives next door and many others.

Abstract

Human life has become predominantly urban in the beginning of XXI century, where relationships and constitutions of the subjects are given and formed in the public space of cities where, even though many try to eliminate this evidence, the crossing, the shock, the meeting with other urban beings is unavoidable. These shocks, increasingly intense in contemporary life, place the subject in distress, discomfort, suffering. To minimize, or at least anesthetize, suffering, we desire and design a city that detaches, silences, individualizes. This text, with characteristics of a critical essay, brings notes for a necessary reflection on the presence of this other in the city and leads to another way to face, to look at this presence. Nettles helped by conceptualizing Freud’s Unheimlich, the Lacan’s Other, Cesarotto’s and Kehl’s shrewd readings and a possible representation in art of the issues raised, with the film El hombre de al lado. Considerations for a reflection on living in the contemporary city.