‘Familiarity’ is from the Latin familia, family. The pith of the well-known saying is purchased in the coin of exaggeration, since familiarity needn’t breed contempt; the exaggeration does however rightly point to the ambiguity of human relations.
Although family ties hold one in bonds of love, it is a holding which is too often a holding in contempt, whether mild, moderate, or murderous. We know our family members too well to respect them easily, though we ought to.
To maintain respect where there is no fear is a moral challenge. When love is present, it is easy. But true love is rare. In most situations, however, fear suffices. So that you not violate me, it suffices that you fear what I will do to you if you do violate me; whether you respect me is moot. Hence the logic of deterrence. “An armed society is a polite society.” “Peace through strength.” Si vis pacem, para bellum. (“If you want peace, prepare for war.”)
Since respect is often fear in disguise, it is often an open question how much the respect one is being shown is really fear.
Respect requires distance. So in every relation with anyone, inside or outside of the family circle, one ought to maintain a certain amount of distance. How much depends on the circumstances and whether one possesses good judgment (phronesis).
There is social distance and physical distance. Social distance is maintained by the observance of conventional forms of polite behavior both verbal and non-verbal. “Excuse me, sir” is an example of the former; knocking before entering, an example of the latter.
‘Family’ narrowly defined implies consanguinity. Consanguinity, however, is no guarantee of spiritual affinity. Sad, but true. On the other hand, there is no comity without commonality. One form of commonality is consanguinity. Although consanguinity contributes to commonality, I am spiritually affine with none of the people to whom I am blood-related. That is my experience; perhaps it is also yours. And yet it is said with some truth that “blood is thicker than water” a saying that points to our dismal rootage in the animal and the tribal.
This is why it is folly to regard the human race as one big happy family. It is not even potentially so. Social harmony is possible only among those who, at a minimum, share a common language and a common culture. Wide-open immigration is therefore a recipe for disaster. A flourishing multi-racial society may be possible; a flourishing multi-cultural society is certainly not. If most of our time is spent tearing each other apart, little time will be left over for ‘flourishing.’ A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The political consequences of the above are obvious.
Familiarity is a species of propinquity (social proximity) but not all propinquity is familiarity. Spiritual affinity requires neither consanguinity nor propinquity. There is spiritual affinity. This is a fact that, to my mind, points to our higher spiritual nature.
We humans are a hybrid ‘species’ drawn upward toward the aethereal but held fast by blood and soil, the tribal and the animalic. Or is that too Platonic a way of putting it?