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-- What is the meaning of friendship?
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Originally posted by ivofivo Depending on where and how we are raised, our tendencies differ from one another. What I am implying is, we are ultimately the same. When our Mother tells us stories, tells us things to watch out for, tells us about pain...we generate an instinct or rather an inevitable brain function of making our own choices. Depending on the relationship and the understanding of your folks, people you are surrounded with as a kid, and what you experience...can be veiwed as variables, which alter our perception of choices later in life.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, but there's a limit as to how much we (can) differ from one another. I can't think of a single society wherein the norm is to hang out with people you'd rather drown, for example. Or a society in which you're not allowed to spend time along with people you care for.

Hmmm, would you lot consider someone on TA (exclusively) a friend? I don't know whether any of you exist, but emotionally, I do feel attached.


paperbag831

quote:

Originally posted by Lira I wholeheartedly agree with you, but there's a limit as to how much we (can) differ from one another. I can't think of a single society wherein the norm is to hang out with people you'd rather drown, for example. Or a society in which you're not allowed to spend time along with people you care for.

Hmm...interesting. There are a lot of groups, however, that do tend a corrupt household. Alcoholics, drugies, damaged parents, unethical parents..ect.

But what interests me the most is that my statement can be just as irrelevant as it is correct.-

If you grow up in a household with flaming alcoholics, you can grow up to be just like them, or be satisfied with a different life style and graduate a prestigious school, all on your own.

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Originally posted by SuspicionVandit Hmmm, would you lot consider someone on TA (exclusively) a friend? I don't know whether any of you exist, but emotionally, I do feel attached. paperbag831

nope unless i meet you in real life i have no ties to any of you people. I have seen too many people come and go from this place to feel attached. The ones I have had a face to face with I am more attached too then the ones that I havent.

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Originally posted by ivofivo Hmm...interesting. There are a lot of groups, however, that do tend a corrupt household. Alcoholics, drugies, damaged parents, unethical parents..ect.

Sure, that's true. However, even these individuals bond in a way or another: criminals, for all their bad deeds, still join mobs and gather around gangs; alcoholics may display a sign or other of affection; and so on.

quote:

Originally posted by ivofivo If you grow up in a household with flaming alcoholics, you can grow up to be just like them, or be satisfied with a different life style and graduate a prestigious school, all on your own.

Once again, that's true. However, would you really be prepared to say alcoholics don't know the meaning of friendship?

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Originally posted by EricB. nope unless i meet you in real life i have no ties to any of you people.

That's it, I'm breaking up with you Eric! Don't ever - ever - call me again. There's a box on my doormat with all your belongings. Feel free to come and pick it up, but do not ring my bell! Ever!

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Once again, that's true. However, would you really be prepared to say alcoholics don't know the meaning of friendship?

It depends on the alcoholic.

What I've noticed is that the ego of the alcoholic tends to become somewhat ossified. It's almost as if so much of their consciousness is obliterated a lot of the time that old ideas take root and they're unable to adapt their thinking. Hence when they come into conflict with something which contradicts their own rules, be it by others or even their own hand, they drink.

This predilection is part of a tendency towards nostalgia and sentimentality. The alcoholic will hold onto people through thick or thin - and sometimes whether that other person wants them to, or not; and whether that other person is actually good for the alcoholic or not. The alcoholic, when they're drinking, is a whirl-wind of destruction and even the nicest one has a gift for ruination of both themselves and the people around them.

It therefor stands to reason that the alcoholic both knows and doesn't know the 'meaning' of friendship. In as much as the alcoholic actually knows who he or she is, they understand the transcendental meanings of things like love, friendship, honor, et al. The problem arises when, under the duress of drinking and the conflicts it creates, these meanings become warped.

Ideals are tortured, beyond recognition. The ego weaves an elaborate web to maintain cohesion through the senseless storm of obliteration. It is a cobweb of illusion. The drinker becomes deluded having to keep track of so many lies about himself that the only sensible thing to do is impose them onto the world around him or her.

In this sense they suffer from a form of pathological narcissism. They become monsters, in their own right. They are Jack Torrance, befuddled by their myriad fears and the delusions they conjure to counter them.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira That's it, I'm breaking up with you Eric! Don't ever - ever - call me again. There's a box on my doormat with all your belongings. Feel free to come and pick it up, but do not ring my bell! Ever!

*jerks off on your door mat*
Welcum

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J It's a Miles Davis reference, Lira. I really don't see the point in this question. It's impossibly broad and vague. There are many relationships you have with others that are called "friendship".

So, according to you philosophers and great thinkers like Epicurus, Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Augustine were wasting their time?

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Originally posted by Lira Still, it doesn't prevent us from looking for universals and simplifying these different relationships in order to define what it is that they have in common. It needn't be an exhaustive list, as you can always split hairs indefinitely until you define each and every friendly relationship on the planet. . . .

Posts like these are why I fucking love you man.

To add a bit of that, I think every discussion on friendship should dwell a little into Epicurus. His view was that friendship, besides acting as the glue that holds society together, was the main contributor to living a happy, pleasant life. I partly disagree with this since I think that while it certainly an important part of the pursue of happiness, it certainly isn't the main path towards it.

He maintained that friendship probably arose from a hope or expectation of mutual benefit between people but that with time and continued contact it grows into a genuine affection, devoid of any expectation other than the pleasure of having another person as your friend.

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Originally posted by Maige Are you a former alcoholic or have you been addicted to any drugs? I've never seen such a deep insight into addiction. I'm saving this, it means a lot to me. Escapism also plays a major role in addiction. Getting high (on certain drugs) helps you completely forget about everything and go somewhere else for a while.

I'd say that a lot of first-hand experience coupled with a lot of book research went into informing that. I'm not much into the whole recovery community angle and, apart from booze and cocaine (coke being relatively easier than booze to kick), still dabble with other mind altering chemicals.

quote:

Originally posted by woscar So, according to you philosophers and great thinkers like Epicurus, Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Augustine were wasting their time?

If any of them asked the question: "What is the meaning of friendship?" with no other information, then yes. What are we supposed to be talking about here? What defines a friendship? The social point of friendship? The evolutionary point of friendship? The emotions of friendship? The practical application of friendship? The intangible essence of "true" friendship?

There is just a subject, and a question. There's no point of entry, no anecdote, no framework.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J If any of them asked the question: "What is the meaning of friendship?" with no other information, then yes. What are we supposed to be talking about here?

You're still unsure about what the topic is after 35 posts?

We may attach meaning to several things in life. What ivofivo calls "friendship" is one of those things. Though this would be a verbose way of posing the question, this is what we are supposed to be talking about here:

What sort of values and narratives, and by that we mean social and personal relations we construe with the objects of our experience, and by experience we mean what we perceive through our senses and mental faculties, and I really can't be arsed to define what the hell these are supposed to be as I'd rather believe you know what I'm talking about before I'm sucked into an endless reduction, do we attach to a social phenomenon described informally by a group of people loosely self-described as "the speakers of English", despite the fact that the definition of language is a very problematic one and that many posters in this thread do not belong to this group if you think about it as those who came to speak this system of linguistic symbols in their infancy, as the word "friendship"?

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Originally posted by EddieZilker It depends on the alcoholic. (...) In this sense they suffer from a form of pathological narcissism. They become monsters, in their own right. They are Jack Torrance, befuddled by their myriad fears and the delusions they conjure to counter them.

True that, but I'm not sure this happens to each and everyone of them, as I know very little about this issue.

What I mean to ask it: do you think alcoholics in general lack the drive to bond with other people?

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Originally posted by woscar Posts like these are why I fucking love you man.

I'm glad you like them.

quote:

Originally posted by woscar To add a bit of that, I think every discussion on friendship should dwell a little into Epicurus. His view was that friendship, besides acting as the glue that holds society together, was the main contributor to living a happy, pleasant life. I partly disagree with this since I think that while it certainly an important part of the pursue of happiness, it certainly isn't the main path towards it. He maintained that friendship probably arose from a hope or expectation of mutual benefit between people but that with time and continued contact it grows into a genuine affection, devoid of any expectation other than the pleasure of having another person as your friend.

I didn't add him because my post was already too long, but nice addition nonetheless

'Friends are just enemies who don't have the guts to stab you in the back'

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Remind me not to ever ask you what the time is, I don't even know how I could possibly get started!

Specifying a time zone would probably be a good start.

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Originally posted by Arbiter Specifying a time zone would probably be a good start.

How would he know I'm asking for the time in the Greenwich Meridian (the political time) because I've got a date or if I want to know what time it is according to our distance to the Meridian itself (the actual geographical time) so I can go to my apartment before the sun sets still being able to see the sunset but not too early because I ran out of sunscreen? There'd be an offset in this case.

We need a point of entry, an anecdote, a framework!!!

(I'm just being playful here, Syst, but I imagine you got my point by now )

quote:

Originally posted by Lira I answered it a few posts above. We can also use a dictionary, if you find that unnecessarily complicated.

I find reducing all the many kinds of friendship down to universal components to be pointlessly reductive, almost tautological, draining any real meaning from the subject matter even as you define it. And why bother? Every human knows what friendship means.

There has to be a reason this question has been posed, an angle we're aiming down. Otherwise it's just pie-in-the-sky pretentious philosophising. I don't mean your responses either, I mean some kid going on a forum, fluffily asking "What is the meaning of [profound subject]" and hitting Submit.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I find reducing all the many kinds of friendship down to universal components to be pointlessly reductive, almost tautological, draining any real meaning from the subject matter even as you define it. And why bother? Every human knows what friendship means. There has to be a reason this question has been posed, an angle we're aiming down. Otherwise it's just pie-in-the-sky pretentious philosophising. I don't mean your responses either, I mean some kid going on a forum, fluffily asking "What is the meaning of [profound subject]" and hitting Submit.

I personally bothered to provide a reductive account of what friendship is precisely because we need to be in a common ground before we can engage in any sort of constructive debate. You said yourself that there were many sorts of relationship known as "friendship", so I narrowed them down a bit so we could get some work done.

And, does Ivo know the meaning of friendship just because he's human? Maybe he does, but what if he doesn't understand why people around him gather for no apparent reason? He did say a few thinks about having trouble caring for others in an earlier thread.

Still, what if he asked us about the meaning of friendship after having a row with one of his best mates who told him he doesn't know what friendship means? Or maybe he was hanging out with a friend and wondered about the meaning of it all?

Would your answer about the meaning of friendship chance according to the situation in such a crucial way as to render it unintelligible to someone coming from a different context?

I'm hugely tempted to post that chop now...

Lira, to make it clear: I'm not saying I can't see the reason why anyone would ask the question, I'm saying I can't see the reason why someone has asked the question. At the moment this thread is serving as a Rorschach test, and I'm questioning the point of the ink blot.

quote:

Originally posted by woscar I'm hugely tempted to post that chop now...

You must be under the mistaken assumption that anyone in this thread is arguing. Although I can't really see why you're getting involved at all. I'll presume that after the Brazil argument you've developed a beef and will now follow me around the forum as you do to nefardec.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J You must be under the mistaken assumption that anyone in this thread is arguing. Although I can't really see why you're getting involved at all. I'll presume that after the Brazil argument you've developed a beef and will now follow me around the forum as you do to nefardec.

lol, Jack, you made me laugh. Ha, I'll follow you around the forum, boyo.

*poke poke

You're not a successful member of TA unless you have a small entourage of posters who are immediately annoyed by anything you post.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J You must be under the mistaken assumption that anyone in this thread is arguing. Although I can't really see why you're getting involved at all. I'll presume that after the Brazil argument you've developed a beef and will now follow me around the forum as you do to nefardec.

As opposed to what you would like to believe I don't develop "beefs" with individual people on the internet. I do, however, have ample contempt for pedantic and faux-intellectual behavior which might explain why it seems to you that I follow certain individuals around.

Not that I should explain to you why I open threads on forums of public discussion and press the reply button but I'm getting involved because as an amateur enthusiast of philosophy, the topic being discussed is both interesting and relevant to me.

Why bother responding to him? System-J has already expressed that the topic is far too broad to even bother discussing, like most every thread he graces us with his opinion in, and certainly won't end up being the most frequent commentator in this one either. Like he already is.

You need to learn to count, Hal. Only one subordinate clause, though - gold star for that. I try and take the time to reply to my fans, hence my continued posts here. Although I am, actually, holding out for the OP to make his question more specific.

Woscar: your amateur interests certainly aren't on display when replying to me, unless your appeal to authority a few pages back counts as interesting and relevant.

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