Friendship

Friendship is a human relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of putting the other's interest before one's own. Their tastes will be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship.

History

Friendship was considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. The Greco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades. The Abrahamic faiths have (the story of David and Jonathan.

Related Topics:
Greco-Roman - Orestes - Pylades - Abrahamic faiths - David and Jonathan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Aristotle distinguishes three types of friendship:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Friendship factored on pleasure;
• Friendship factored on interest;
• Friendship factored on goodness;

In recent times, some thinkers have postulated that modern friendships have lost the force and importance that they had in antiquity. C. S. Lewis for example, in his The Four Loves, writes,

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Likewise, Paul Halsall claims that,

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:The intense emotional and affective relationships described in the past as "non-sexual" cannot be said to exist today: modern heterosexual men can be buddies, but unless drunk they cannot touch each other, or regularly sleep together. They cannot affirm that an emotional affective relationship with another man is the centrally important relationship in their lives. It is not going too far, is it, to claim that friendship - if used to translate Greek philia or Latin amicita - hardly exists among heterosexual men in modern Western society.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~