The author interprets Camus' novel and relates the resulting analytical framework to the results of a comparative research project dealing with how Japanese and U.S. citizens judge acts of wrongdoing. The analysis illustrates some of the ways in which estrangement and distance are created and perceived structurally and culturally between groups inside and outside the society, as these are stipulated as the macro processes of creating strangers and collectives of strangers. The article raises questions about how the Japanese criminal justice system will react in the future, either by following Western societies that seem willing to create strangers and then define their acts as criminal and deserving of incarceration, or by moving toward a consciously chosen human system. 23 notes and 28 references