The Substance of Friends

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The Substance of Friends

 “Many people will walk in and out of your life; but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart" (Unknown).

Introduction

True, not only personal experience but the chronicles of great men and the life stories of ordinary folks celebrate the triumphs of friendship in man’s continuing search for meaning and happiness. Despite it being ambiguous and undefinable, friendship is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe and is considered as a basic need that nurtures and sustains life itself. The value of friendship in a person’s life could be summed up by Rath (2006) in his book Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without when he said that “Friendships are among the most fundamental of human needs...without friends, it is very difficult to get by, let alone thrive.”

This paper examines the value of friendship in developing an individual’s sense of self and fulfilment. To do this, the discussions will focus on theories that describe how friendships develop and coalesce from childhood through adulthood and the implications of these relationships in fundamental social development. To lay the groundwork, some perspectives and theories on the nature of friendship are presented as a foundation.

Nature of Friendship

Friendship is defined as a voluntary relationship between equals (Allan 1989). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, friendship is “a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy”. Epstein (2006) gives a thumbnail definition of friendship as affection, shared interests, past, values, enemies, and delight in one another’s company.

Indeed there are a myriad ways of defining friendship. Whatever definition is preferred, it is generally agreed that the kind of friendships people maintain are based on the social and cultural context where relationships are formed. It is also widely accepted that despite its complicatedness, friendship continues to remain as a central aspiration of human beings as it was from a long time ago.

It would be worthy to start with a classical view of friendship that has withstood the test of time. In implying that friendship is a kind of virtue and as a necessity in life, Aristotle classifies it intro three types – friendship based on utility, pleasure and on good character, this third he calls as genuine friendship (Pangle 2002, p. 51). Friendships based on utility dissolve when the usefulness of the relationship dies out.  Like one that is based on utility, friendships based on pleasure are also not enduring, fading out as affections and pleasant feelings subside. The third kind of friendship which is based on goodness Aristotle considers as perfect friendship. It is shared by friends who are good similar in their goodness. Aristotle writes that “it is those who desire the good of their friends for the friends’ sake that are most truly friends, because each loves the other for what he is, and not for any incidental quality” (in Pangle 2002, p. 31). Aristotle also asserts that “the excellent person is related to his friend in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another self; and therefore, just as his own being is choiceworthy for him, the friend's being is choice-worthy for him in the same or a similar way” (in Pangle 2002, p. 52). As such, Aristotle believes that genuine friends shy away from egoistic and selfish tendencies and are most likely to remain friends for a long time.  

Based on Aristotle’s views on friendship, Stern-Gillet (1995, p. 37) describes friendship based on virtue as a relationship between whole persons who perceive a friend as they perceive themselves, who know a friend as they know themselves and who are “related to a friend in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another himself”. Virtuous friends “enlarge and extend each other's moral experience... recognize each other's moral excellence.... and provide a mirror in which the other may see himself” (Pahl 2000, p. 22).

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Friendships based on utility and on pleasure could be explained by the Social Exchange Theory proposed by Homans (1958, in Befu 1977) who said that social change and stability is a process of negotiated exchanges between parties such that all human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives. Literature teems with discussions on friendship implicitly grounded on the framework of rewards or benefits of friendships. Hayes (1984) identified four rewarding friendship behaviors: companionship (sharing activities or one another's company), consideration (helpfulness, utility, support), communication (discussing information about one's self, exchanging ideas ...

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