The goodness of Facebook
I must admit, I love Facebook. Only a couple of years ago, I was totally against the concept: I argued that virtual relationships can be no substitution for in-person interaction and that Facebook promotes false sense of belonging. Although I still hold those points valid, lately – especially during my travels – I have grown to appreciate the goodness of Facebook as well. Besides the obvious convenience of easy photo sharing, it offers so much more. From satisfying your natural curiosity about your childhood friends to really making new friends, cultivating new real – not virtual – relationships from the shoots of simple on-the-road acquaintances.
How do we become friends? Through sharing various experiences, by being somehow involved in each other's life. How often, during travels, people meet, click, spend some awesome hours (days, weeks) together, promise to "keep in touch" at good-bye, write a couple of emails and… never see or hear from each other again. Naturally, if you are not in each other's life one way or another, very soon you run out of topics for discussion and your communication withers.
But now, thanks to Facebook, people actually have a chance to develop a meaningful relationship over time, by being exposed to each other's life through pictures and status updates. In other words, the material for a quality conversation is continuously supplied. However silly and superficial it may sound, the process actually works! You start by putting a comment here and there, you see what your new (potential) friend likes or doesn't like to do, then you engage into a long discussion thread over some political, cultural or life issue, and all of a sudden… you find yourself planning a trip togetherJ.
Friendship according to Aristotle
The process of making friends has always fascinated me (and here's the proof that I keep thinking about it). What is it that makes you click with some people almost instantly and spend years side by side with others without as much as sharing a semi-deep thought? Why do we grow close with some people and really like others but can't seem to find any common ground for a relationship? Do pheromones affect our friendship decisions? Or the rules of physics, physics of friendship?
I am an only child, so naturally the subject of friendship has been in a way central in my life as I create my own "family" from those who surround me. After all, as Aristotle states, "Anyone who is to be happy must have excellent friends". I want to be happy. And I am fortunate to be happy.
Aristotle argues that there are 3 kinds of philia (usually translated as "friendship"):
- Philia based on mutual advantage (love for what is useful).
- Philia based on mutual pleasure (love for what is pleasant).
- Philia based on admiration (love for what is good).
These types are not mutually exclusive, they can overlap. The third kind will usually involve the other two, and is, Aristotle argues, the best of the three. Mutual admiration involves the nature of the other person, not simply how they affect you, and is therefore more likely to last ("for if someone is no longer pleasant or useful, the other stops loving him").
I love Aristotle's clear distinction of kinds of people experiencing philia: "Now it is possible for bad people to be friends to each other for pleasure or utility, for decent people to be friends to base people, and for someone with neither character to be a friend to someone with any character. Clearly, however, only good people can be friends to each other because of the other person himself; for bad people find no enjoyment in one another if they get no benefit. Good people's life together allows the cultivation of virtue."
Following this logic, I must be a good person because my friends are good peopleJ. In fact, they are awesome people; and by "awesome" I mean interesting, loving, loyal, fun.
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