Once after giving a lecture on friendship I was told I was undermining the hearers ability to have relationships with diverse people. Clarity on this issue is crucial.
What had I asserted in my lecture? Aristotle’s principle: deep friendship requires unity of worldview. The longer I live the more I discover just how true this principle is, even if also at times heartbreaking.
It is not simply characteristic of our ‘liberal’ age to seek relationships across lines of deeply held differences; often enough we all want to love, live with, and relate to people very different from ourselves. This is natural and good, to the extent that it is possible.
Here we must make an all-important distinction between a level of interaction possible even amidst great diversity, and another level where deep friendship happens. I must emphasize: the point here is not that a person eschews or avoids people with different worldviews. The principle is in a sense obvious: where less is shared, less can be shared.
Now for starters, with everyone we have a basis of shared humanity. In recognition of this the medieval theologian Aelred of Rievaulx wrote, “Charity toward all, [deep] friendship with a few.” Beyond the respect due to all, and indeed also Christian charity which is much more than just respect, there can also be particular, authentic relationships between people of different worldviews. These are very meaningful even while limited. To recognize and observe due limits here is not to hamstring these relationships; rather it alone enables their true realization. The wise remind us: never act as though you have more in common than you do. The sure foundation of any relationship is to stand in the truth.
The assertion that we can have deep friendship despite fundamentally diverse worldviews stems from a misunderstanding not so much of friendship as of human life itself. If friendship is, as the wise tell us, a way of living one life together, then its quality and characteristics are determined by what it is to live a human life at all.
Now convictions about basic truths are not peripheral in human life; they are foundations that give form to all aspects of it. For this reason Socrates said to Euthyphro:
…[what are] the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, the honorable and the dishonorable. Are these not the subjects of difference about which, when we are unable to come to a satisfactory decision, you and I and other men quarrel whenever we do?
It’s not that friends never quarrel. But the quarrelling to which Socrates refers here is something deeper, something that stands in the way of real meeting of hearts and minds.
Especially today, we must always respect others and strive to ‘get along’ the best we can. To offer Christian charity to all is a further and profound calling. Also, we will have diverse, particular persons with whom our lives intersect in wonderfully meaningful and challenging ways. None of this changes the nature and unique requirements of deeper friendship. Indeed, our life can and should be a sort of symphony of different kinds of relationships.
And to recognize the truth of the great demands of friendship will not only enable these deepest of relationships; it will enrich all our other ones too.
Image: Giovanni Cariani (Italian, c. 1485-1547)
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I would appreciate a clarification of your distinction between the “particular, authentic relationships” possible between those of different worldviews and “deep friendship.” If “deep friendship” is something only possible to those of shared conviction why would both Scalia and Ginsberg have described their deep friendship thus? I mean, they were both pretty deep people and I presume you wouldn’t correct their description of their own friendship.
Imelda, Thank you for this question. I will not correct their description of their relationship. That said, I think there is an important clarification needed–one which begins with the recognition that there is a word-usage issue here. Let me begin by saying I have heard of their friendship but have not read anything in particular about it. Here is what I would surmise, from afar, as it were. Since everyone knows that Scalia and Ginsberg have very different worldviews, they themselves recognized that their ability even just to get along well was noteworthy. I would guess (again, not speaking from knowledge) that what they mean by their friendship included these things: deep mutual respect; a congenial appreciation of one another’s characteristics and habits; a willingness to work together for the common good of the nation; etc. This might include also a particular ability to understand one another’s writings or declarations, or also shared interests in history, sports, or other such things. Certainly, these two spent a bit of time together by necessity. Perhaps this led also to enjoying each other’s company recreationally. All of these things together yield a very reasonable use of the term ‘friendship’ or even a ‘close friendship’–I think especially in view of what otherwise might have been expected. This is beautiful, and I in no way denigrate it. But all this I do distinguish from the ‘deep friendship’ that consists in a deeper life-sharing that can only come of sharing more broadly and deeply in worldview, including moral and religious convictions. I take your great question and example as pointing to the richness and hierarchy of relationships in the symphony of life. Thank you. I’m very open to more comments on this!
I suppose my dad paraphrased Aelred of Rievaulx when he told me: In life, you may have many acquaintances but only a few true friends. Your listeners spoke of “relationships”, not friendships, and there’s a vast difference between those two words.
This is absolutely true. An authentic friend is a rare treasure. Skeptics should consult C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves for more on this.
What a great article. It’s a help to all of us who wish friendship with those we find creative, honest, charismatic and who genuinely like us. But along the way we find that some part of them, either in morals, worldview, or faith, is distinctly different or even opposed to our own. If the difference is deep enough and is something we cannot compromise on, it is doubtful that the true friendship this author speaks of will occur. That can be devastating but should be seen not as failure but rather part of the mysterious dance of life and the ever pressing inward search for a person who can live in our heart as one who truly knows and loves us. To me it is a search that only ends with God. As St. Augustine said, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you,O,Lord.”
I find this to be deeply wrong and dangerous to social unity. I am friends with a lot of people with whom I disagree strongly on fundamentals. Often times I enjoy their company more than so-called “like-minded people.” I have learned so much from people I disagree with, and have a respect for them I wouldn’t have if I were stuck in an echo chamber. It’s really really important that people make friends with people they disagree with, even (especially) fundamentally. It’s critical for the structure of society.
John, thank you for the words of wisdom and a clear explanation of friendship. I am blessed to be married to my best friend. This short article highlights the importance of discernment when dating and selecting a spouse. I look forward to your next piece.
No truer words can be spoken about friendship. Here is the salient point that you write: The principle is in a sense obvious: where less is shared, less can be shared. For those who think this is a horrible dangerous and perhaps obnoxious thing, I ask, if you think murder is wrong, how in the world can you possibly be friends with someone who thinks murder not wrong? Oh, you think that is too extreme an example? Okay, then suggest where you might draw the line. Of course one can enjoy all sorts of people with all sorts of perspectives. But up to a point and never can any of these if they don’t share your core values, which are to be based on Christian values of right and wrong, can you have a true friendship with.
Hi, Dr. Cuddeback,
I’ll ask for clarification one why you think the present age ‘liberal’ and will suggest that I’m not sure I think the conventional use of the term ‘worldview’ to be one with which I remain concerned when I heard it. It seems to me an over-simplification.
That said, I am in agreement that one must needs have a great degree of agreement as regarding shared opinions for friendships to be a real qua friendship.
I would take a different approach however, than to characterize the necessary criteria in terms of worldview, what one might mean by seem, at present, too nebulous. In our evidentiary age overrun my materialist observations, I might start with the necessity of shared language, verifiable agreement on meaning of language, how the language works in organizing our agreeable understandings, and from there, reason out some sort of widely agreeable Athanasian utterance of corporate belief regarding right opinion such that friendship might be renewed regularly by a breathing together of that utterance, or, as John Courtney Murray has called it–without the invidious connotations–conspiracy.
Daniel, My purpose in putting the term ‘liberal’ in quotations was to indicate that I am using the term as it is used commonly now (versus the medieval usage, as in ‘liberal arts’); and as it is used now really could mean here either liberal as in classical liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, or a more recent social liberalism. I also agree the term ‘worldview’ can be a bit nebulous, but in context I hoped it would reasonably convey a sense of ‘substantive principles pertaining to the meaning/purpose of human life.” Thanks.
It seems to me there are certain convictions about basic truths that must be shared in order for deep friendship to be possible. These are so fundamental they’re easily taken for granted. (1) that such a thing as friendship for its own sake even exists;
(2) that not all friendships are equal; possibly others. I’m not certain how helpful this would be to anyone but I think it’s support for the claim that there are certain things deep friends cannot disagree about.
My comment has to do with the video at the end, regarding spending more time with our children. Don’t you think this is a rather modern view? That for centuries and centuries families spent the bulk of their time working, sometimes together, sometimes the 9 year old was sent to live on the nearby farm to earn some money for the family to survive. Some children worked alongside their parents, but I don’t sense that most parents felt terrible about not spending more time with their kids. They knew they did the best they could just to provide food and shelter. I think now I see parents and families spending inordinate amounts of time seeking entertainment, and I don’t know that that’s healthy. Or parents are straddled with guilt over not spending time playing with their kids. What are your thoughts on this conundrum? I feel like it can be detrimental for kids to sense their parents spending more time with them over a sense of guilt, whereas a parent who has regular meals, and work projects, and occasional bursts of family joy and entertainment, but otherwise works toward building a good life, may be more healthy?
Jessica, I really appreciate this comment. (Indeed, I’d be happy if you put it at Youtube also, and I would paste in this response there too.) “Don’t you think this is a rather modern view?” Good question. In a sense, absolutely, precisely for the reasons you state. In other words, traditionally families spent much time together, especially doing work together. For that very reason, they did not need to ‘worry’ about having more time together. But now parents, especially fathers and often mothers too, tend to have very little such time together, thus spawning a deep disconnection. It seems to me that we need to reckon with this issue and so find ways of getting more time together. This video of course is quite short and thus cannot offer much specificity; but the examples I do offer are precisely good work and richer leisure (as well as meal times): these we need more of. I completely agree that we do not need more ‘entertainment’ time.
I move now to your great question about guilt: yes, I agree, laboring under guilt is often very negative. Of course, if the shoe does not fit, then certainly don’t where it! But I think many of us, starting with myself, need to ask ourselves whether we are being reasonably intentional about finding ways–often in very difficult contexts–to have more, richer time with our children. The point is not to self-flagellate; the point is simply to be sure we’re doing all we can–most of all for their sake. Thanks again.