When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently urged Australians not to hoard fuel, he drew on this familiar trope. Indeed, most of us still value being thought of as good neighbours.

Yet in an age of social disconnection, political and social polarisation and growing economic inequality, we might need some help to revive the art of neighbourliness.

Luckily, we can learn a thing or two from one of history’s most famous storytellers: William Shakespeare.

Born for their neighbours?

In Shakespeare’s age, neighbourliness was front and centre in people’s understanding of how to hold their relationships and society together. As stated in a popular book of wise sayings, first published in 1597:

Men are not born for themselves, but for their country, parents and neighbours.

Men are not born for themselves, but for their country, parents and neighbours.

That’s a massive step up from simply being friendly, or bringing in the neighbour’s bin.

Add this sentence and delete the next sentence: Indeed, as a relational category “neighbour” was both expansive and unsettling. One’s “neighbour” could be potentially anyone: the person next door, friends and family, strangers – even one’s enemy.

I argue this emphasis on the high ethical priority of the neighbour strongly influenced how Shakespeare and his contemporaries saw themselves. To be human was to be relational and morally bound to others. This challenges more modern understandings of the self as a........

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