"Our inability to relate to one another is very, very, very important. When we don't have it, we get situations like Bosnia"
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Olmos doesn’t dress this up as a soft plea for empathy; he frames social connection as infrastructure. The triple-stacked “very, very, very” is actorly on purpose: not elegance, urgency. It’s the verbal equivalent of grabbing someone by the lapels and saying, pay attention. In a culture that loves treating “relating” as personal growth homework, he yanks it into the realm of public safety and political consequence.
The key move is the causal bridge: “When we don’t have it, we get situations like Bosnia.” Bosnia stands in as shorthand for the 1990s collapse of civic bonds into ethnonationalist violence, neighbor turning on neighbor with the world watching. He’s not claiming every failure of empathy leads straight to genocide; he’s warning that dehumanization begins as a small social habit before it becomes policy, militia, massacre. “Our inability” implicates everyone, not just the obvious villains. The subtext: the seedbed of atrocity is ordinary alienation, the quiet decision to stop imagining other people’s interior lives.
Coming from an actor - and from Olmos in particular, whose career and activism often orbit representation, Latino identity, and community - the line also critiques media and politics that profit from flattening people into types. Relating, here, isn’t sentimental sameness; it’s the work of holding difference without turning it into a threat. Bosnia is the nightmare outcome of a society that decides it doesn’t need that work anymore.
The key move is the causal bridge: “When we don’t have it, we get situations like Bosnia.” Bosnia stands in as shorthand for the 1990s collapse of civic bonds into ethnonationalist violence, neighbor turning on neighbor with the world watching. He’s not claiming every failure of empathy leads straight to genocide; he’s warning that dehumanization begins as a small social habit before it becomes policy, militia, massacre. “Our inability” implicates everyone, not just the obvious villains. The subtext: the seedbed of atrocity is ordinary alienation, the quiet decision to stop imagining other people’s interior lives.
Coming from an actor - and from Olmos in particular, whose career and activism often orbit representation, Latino identity, and community - the line also critiques media and politics that profit from flattening people into types. Relating, here, isn’t sentimental sameness; it’s the work of holding difference without turning it into a threat. Bosnia is the nightmare outcome of a society that decides it doesn’t need that work anymore.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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