Friendship, a thread: I used to believe that friendship was among the highest moral goods. That was partly constitutional, but it was also down to admiring Aristotle’s conception of friendship for the sake of friendship as the highest form of friendship.
However, life has taught me that this does not really work. For a start, no one else really subscribes to my high ideals. That’s reasonable, given that we are not encouraged to follow Aristotle nor does he inform our lives. But it is also a product of modernity.
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We have broken down anything like the polis. All we have are economic relationships, management, & calculation. In these conditions, nobody can think of friendships for the sake of friendship as possible. We can only think in terms of utilitarianism and what we “get out” of it.
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We see this in the field of romantic relationships (“move on”; “I’m different”; “I’m stronger now”; “It’s for the best”). The relationship is purely utilitarian. This isn’t noble indifference, it’s bean counting. However, men and women can’t be friends. Something I also learned.
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I doubt Aristotle expected them to be. Romance & friendship are connected by the managerial outlook of modernity. I’ve concluded that only the lower sorts of Aristotelian friendships are possible: alliances of interest. The higher sort is inaccessible in modernity.
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That means, if you’re my friend, it’s nothing more than a temporary alliance of interests. I’m going to be quite indifferent from now on. You’re a business interest. Operating any other way is futile & bewildering in modernity. This is natural for most, I’m among the exceptions.
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End of conversation
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