What is Friendship?

[Apoi_Viitor]

?

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

I have little knowlege in actual psycology, but from what i've seen people define or refer to as the motivation for friendship, I think all attempts i've seen to define this come across as really "autistic" and limited. I think this tendancy is best summed up by the libertarian idea of calling friendship or love a "mutally beneifical relationship", kinda with the same dynanmics as trading goods on the market - you need something from me, I need something from you. I think this definition sounds like the sort someone would come up with if they'd only heard about friendship or love or whatever, rather than actually experienced it.

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

Professor Richard Dawkins does some really great work on friendship and it's genetic origins in his book The Selfish Gene. Interesting stuff. It's literally an example of a trait leftover from the evolutionary process.

[Amphictyonis]

What other people can do for our social image. Authentic friendship is hard to find- if you do hold onto it like a life preserver in an unforgiving storm. Jesus this sounds pessimistic. I think the same can be said of many peoples idea of romantic love. Authenticity is hard to come by these days. Not that I've known any other days.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

What other people can do for our social image. Authentic friendship is hard to find- if you do hold onto it like a life preserver in an unforgiving storm. Jesus this sounds pessimistic. I think the same can be said of many peoples idea of romantic love. Authenticity is hard to come by these days. Not that I've known any other days.

But, if people did not take pleasure from ordinary friendship with others, what would be the point in them trying them trying to improve their social image?

[Amphictyonis]

But, if people did not take pleasure from ordinary friendship with others, what would be the point in them trying them trying to improve their social image?

We're social beings and need human contact to fully develop but the contact we choose usually benefits our ego in some way. I'm not so sure this is a bad thing. If, to me, a man was ugly and acted like an idiot I wouldn't date him but the same man may be attractive and full of chivalry in anothers eyes. What it is about this man that makes me feel this way? How do we choose friends? We want to project our social image via our friends which is why many people befreind people who either remind them of themselves or are people they aspire to be like. Our friends "co sign" our projections of ourselves. They re-substantiate our perception of reality. Would Donald Trump hang out with Snoop Dog? Would Snoop Dog want to hang out with Donald Trump?

[ChrisK]

You know the answer, its in how you use the term "friendship." Take the statement "I value our friendship." Here, friendship is taken to mean a close bond between a group of people.

Perhaps a better line of question would be "Why do we have friends?" which is one that can be answered anthropologically, not philosophically.

[Exakt]

the process of someone you knew 6 years ago who adds you on facebook, then asks "what's up?" and you reply "not much" and then you go back to not talking to each other for another 8 years whilst having to continue reading their inane wallposts and you can't delete them because you don't want to upset them by breaking your 'friendship'. yup.

[Absolut]

The Anthropology of Friendship (http://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Friendship-Sandra-Bell/dp/1859733158)

I havent read the whole book, only a few chapters, but its really interesting so far, and might give you some answers.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ExUnoEtcEtc:


Professor Richard Dawkins does some really great work on friendship and it's genetic origins in his book The Selfish Gene. Interesting stuff. It's literally an example of a trait leftover from the evolutionary process.

His theory (aka 'Inclusive Fitness'), is useless; it can't even explain why children (who share as many genes with their siblings as their parents do) display far less altruism toward those siblings than their parents show toward those very same offspring. Has anyone ever seen a robin build a nest for its brothers and sisters?

Worse still, bacteria, animals and plants that reproduce asexually, and thus which share all their genes, would be world record altruists.

Has anyone ever seen a self-sacrificing daffodil? Or a friendly E-Coli? Or even an altruistic potato?

------------------------

Sorry, AV, but anyone who has to ask this question plainly has no friends.:(

[Otherwise he/she would know the answer before it was asked.]

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I think it's better to question a system which has alienated human beings from each other to the point where the vast majority of the population seems to the majority of people to be a mass of strangers, while only a handful can be trusted or considered friends; and this despite all the huge advances in production, communication, travel, etc., in the last two hundred years.

"The tragedy of our society is not just that the usual forms of behaviour and the principles regulating this behaviour are breaking down, but that a spontaneous wave of new attempts at living is developing from within the social fabric, giving man hopes and ideals that cannot yet be realised. We are people living in the world of property relationships, a world of sharp class contradictions and of an individualistic morality. We still live and think under the heavy hand of an unavoidable loneliness of spirit. Man experiences this 'loneliness' even in towns full of shouting, noise and people, even in a crowd of close friends and work-mates. Because of their loneliness men are apt to cling in a predatory and unhealthy way to illusions about finding a 'soul mate' from among the members of the opposite sex." - Alexandra Kollontai

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Except that this still does not tell us what friendship is...:(

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

ExUnoEtcEtc:



His theory (aka 'Inclusive Fitness'), is useless; it can't even explain why children (who share as many genes with their siblings as their parents do) display far less altruism toward those siblings than their parents show toward those very same offspring. Has anyone ever seen a robin build a nest for its brothers and sisters?

Worse still, bacteria, animals and plants that reproduce asexually, and thus which share all their genes, would be world record altruists.

Has anyone ever seen a self-sacrificing daffodil? Or a friendly E-Coli? Or even an altruistic potato?

------------------------

Sorry, AV, but anyone who has to ask this question plainly has no friends.:(

[Otherwise he/she would know the answer before it was asked.]

So far as altruism towards children goes, society causes parents to behave in that way. They're EXPECTED to act altruistically and have been programmed through the four levels of impressionable memory to do so.

Daffodils, E-Coli, potatoes, etc. don't have the mental capacity and evolutionary advantage necessary to sacrifice themselves. In order to be altruistic, an organism must be able to recognize where altruism is needed.

Studies have shown that the closer two species are genetically, the more frequently they exhibit altruistic behaviors towards one another... birds will cooperate to ensure the survival of their genes and often altruistic behavior isn't truly altruistic at all, but carefully planned with expectations for reciprocation. However, reciprocation seems to be expected from the same species by an animal (I'm not sure how but I know that this is addressed... I'll get back to you on this).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ExUnoEtc:


So far as altruism towards children goes, society causes parents to behave in that way. They're EXPECTED to act altruistically and have been programmed through the four levels of impressionable memory to do so.

But, according to Dawkins, we are all controlled by our genes, and yet this 'expectation' does not come from our genes since it is unequally expressed; parents care for their offspring more than offspring care for one another. Hence, inclusive fitness cannot account for this widespread phenomenon.

But that is quite apart from the fact that non-human parents have no expectations nor any placed on them, and yet this disparity is reproduced in animal populations, too. When was the last time you saw a fox look after its sibling foxes as well its parents do? Or rats, or vultures, or...


Daffodils, E-Coli, potatoes, etc. don't have the mental capacity and evolutionary advantage necessary to sacrifice themselves. In order to be altruistic, an organism must be able to recognize where altruism is needed.

But this is a causal theory, where we are told each organism is controlled by its genes, so 'mental capacity' is irrelevant. Genes have no 'mental capacity', even though they are supposed to be 'selfish'.

And, we can see this when we look at the Hymenoptera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera), which this theory claims as its greatest success. Here, there is no 'mental capacity', but we are told that these social insects act they way they do to maximise the survival of their genes in the next generation.

But, it fails here too: it can't account even for the behaviour of such insects. That is because these insects promote the reproductive success of the Queen, with whom they share 50% their genes, in preferrence to that of their sister insects, with whom they share 75%.


Studies have shown that the closer two species are genetically, the more frequently they exhibit altruistic behaviors towards one another... birds will cooperate to ensure the survival of their genes and often altruistic behavior isn't truly altruistic at all, but carefully planned with expectations for reciprocation. However, reciprocation seems to be expected from the same species by an animal (I'm not sure how but I know that this is addressed... I'll get back to you on this).

But, there is no way they can recognise these allegedly close relatives. For example, a male robin will try to defend its territory against a piece of red fabric, confusing it with another robin. So, how can these genes express themselves here with dim animals like this that can't tell the difference bewteen another bird and a piece of cloth?

Even worse, human beings show altruistic behaviour toward plants, defending almost to the death a stand of rare trees (http://www.savetheredwoods.org/) or even rarer orchids (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=rare-british-orchid-gets-police-pro-2010-05-14).

According to your unsourced studies, that should mean we are genetically close to the Redwood Pine and Cypripedium calceolus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypripedium_calceolus)!

[Apoi_Viitor]

Sorry, AV, but anyone who has to ask this question plainly has no friends.:(

[Otherwise he/she would know the answer before it was asked.]

I'll be sure to tell that to my philosophy teacher.

[PhoenixAsh]

Friends are people that serve our interests and cater to our emotional and/or material needs both in giving and receiving aspect.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AV:


I'll be sure to tell that to my philosophy teacher.

Well, I'm sorry to have to say this, but philosophers have been asking such pointless questions since Anaximander (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander) was a lad.

It reminds me of three cartoons I once saw.

The first pictured two individuals having a conversation in a Philosophy Department somewhere:

A: 'Ah, the big questions of Philosophy. They're the ones that interest me. Like, "Who am I? What am I? Where am I?"'

B: 'Sounds more like amnesia to me...'.

The second pictured a man putting his head round the office door of the Philosophy Department and asking:

Man: "Is this the Philosophy Department?"

Secretary: "If we knew the answer to that one, we wouldn't be here!"

The last cartoon depicted a student with a worried expression on her face asking her Philosophy Professor at the end of a lecture on Descartes:

Student: "Er, Professor, after hearing you lecture on Descartes' method of radical doubt, can I ask you a question? Do I exist?"

Professor: "And who wants to know?"

All of which (and more (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-philosophical-theories-t148537/index.html)) only goes to show that traditional philosophy is like a mental disease that afflicts supposedly intelligent people, and has been doing so now for over 2400 years.

[JazzRemington]

I'll be sure to tell that to my philosophy teacher.

To be perfectly frank, you should. It's like when your professor wants to, e.g., discuss the nature of "time" in class...despite the fact that he or she knows damn well when class starts and ends.

[ChrisK]

I'll be sure to tell that to my philosophy teacher.

Rosa's position is basically mine. If you have friends and can speak the language, then you know what friendship is.

Your philosophy prof will hate the answer, but thats because it demonstrates that his job is pointless. There is a reason why philosophers ignore Wittgenstein (or misrepresent him), he tends to show how useless their job is.

[blake 3:17]

I`m less in interested in the what or why, but the how.

[ChrisK]

I`m less in interested in the what or why, but the how.

How is friendship?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

On Inclusive Fitness, comrades should check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2052750&postcount=180

[blake 3:17]

In terms of movements and movement organizations, I prefer the term "friend" to either "comrade" or "brothers and sisters".


How is friendship?

By that I meant how to be a friend, how to build friendships, how to create living conditions which nurture friendships.

This is an underexamined subject for most Marxists. I think some anarchists and "community activists" may see friendship as important. For a truly emancipated society I think we need to accept that friendship as a form of voluntary free association is something that should be nurtured.

I work in social services in which one thing we do try to do is build welcoming atmospheres which build community, which does create possibilities of friendship. My co-operative and I (ie a group of friends) went through a disaster recently, and we would all have been screwed massively if we hadn't been organized as friends, and had not had other community minded friends. Social struggle isn't simply about The People, but actual people.

One interesting thing that a friend had pushed for in trade union negotiations were paid and unpaid leave to care and attend to non-family members. Many work places, unionized or not, have clauses which allow for time off to deal with the illness, injury or death of biological or legal relatives.

To be honest, I have relatives whose illnesses or deaths wouldn't matter much in my life and there would be little I would or could do about it. I do have friends whose fates matter much more to me, and for whom I matter likewise.