What Does It Mean To Be A Friend?
What does "friend" mean? How can we describe the different kinds of friendship we have?
Words have power, the power to differentiate and the power to render the same. It is useful to be able to speak of all tall growing woody things as trees, and also useful to be able to speak of birches and evergreens, of palms and apple trees. In a world with expanding connections, do we have the language to describe our different relationships with people in a way that both respects them, and helps us understand them? Without this language, can we accurately understand our emotional and social needs for connection, can we know when we need to focus on cultivating closeness and when we need to expand our network? What is friendship? What are it's variations? What language can we use to better understand it?
This is not a new question. In "Nicomachean Ethics", Aristotle spends a fair amount of time examining friendship (1), and he grapples with some of the variations and needs we see today. Yet in a world where relationships are increasingly mediated and maintained using social media, making it easy for connections to be retained passively until they can be reignited, these lines are more blurred then ever, and there is a need for renewed and more nuanced language around friendship to help us navigate creating the right relationships for a fulfilled and empowered life.
(1) http://cantory.blogspot.bg/2007/12/aristotle-and-his-view-of-friendship.html
Join us for a lively discussion! Doors at 8pm, talk begins at 8.30pm on the dot. Suggested donation is $5. We provide free in house childcare at all our events, drop us a line if you would like to make use of this service :)
