Oneself as Another

William Temple emphasizes in Christianity and Social Orderthat we are constituted in relationship:

“this social nature of man is fundamentalto his being. I am not first some one on my own account who happensto be the child of my parents, a citizen oi Great Britain, and so forth. Ifyou take all these social relationships away, there is nothing left. A manis talking nonsense if he says: ‘Well, if I had been the son of some oneelse . . . etc.’ He is his parents son; what he is supposing is not that heshould he someone elses son, but that he should not exist and someoneelse should exist instead. By our mutual influence we actually constituteone another as what we are. This mutual influence finds its first field ofactivity in the family; it finds other fields later in school, college, TradeUnion, professional association, city, county, nation, Church.”