Information AboutFriendship |
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Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more humans. This article focuses on the notion specific to interpersonal relationships. In this sense, the term connotes a Relationship which involves mutual Knowledge , Esteem , and Affection . Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit Loyalty towards each other, often to the point of Altruism . Their Tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in Mutually Helping Behavior , such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective Behavior s. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the Trust that someone or something will not harm them. Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating on a consistent basis:
In a comparison of Personal Relationships , friendship is considered to be closer than Association , although there is a range of degrees of Intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association can be thought of as spanning across the same continuum. The study of friendship is included in Sociology , Anthropology , Philosophy , and Zoology . Various theories of friendship have been proposed, among which are Social Psychology , Social Exchange Theory , Equity Theory , relational Dialectics , and Attachment Styles . ''See Interpersonal Relationships '' HISTORY OF FRIENDSHIP Friendship is considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. '' The Epic Of Gilgamesh '', a Babylonian poem that is among the earliest known literary works in history, chronicles in great depth the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu . The Greco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades . The Abrahamic Faiths have the story of David And Jonathan . Friendship played an important role in German Romanticism . A good example for this is Schiller's The Hostage (ballad) . The Christian Gospels state that Jesus Christ declared, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."(John 15:13). In philosophy, Aristotle is perhaps best known for his discussion (in the '' Nicomachean Ethics '') of '' Philia '', which is usually (somewhat misleadingly) translated as "friendship", and certainly included friendship, though is a much broader concept. Cultural variations: (stub-section) A group of friends consists of two or more people who are in a mutually pleasing relationship engendering a sentiment of camaraderie, exclusivity and mutual trust. There are varying degrees of "closeness" between friends. Hence, some people choose to differentiate and categorize friendships based on this sentiment. Russia The relationship is constructed differently in different cultures. In Russia , for example, one typically accords very few people the status of "friend". These friendships however make up in intensity what they lack in number. Friends are entitled to call each other by their first names alone, and to use diminutives. A norm of polite behaviour is addressing "acquaintances" by full first name plus Patronymic . These could include relationships which elsewhere would be qualified as real friendships, such as workplace relationships of long standing, neighbors with whom one shares an occasional meal and visit, and so on. Physical contact between friends is expected, and friends, whether or not of the same sex, will embrace, sometimes kiss and walk in public with their arms around each other, or arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (like kids often do), without the slightest embarrassment or sexual connotation — this is not often seen in the modern Russia, and may be some highly outdated norm. According to Oleg Kharkhordin in a paper on the politics of friendship, in Soviet society, friendships were "a suspect value for the Stalinist regime" in that they presented a stronger allegiance that could stand in possible opposition to allegiance to the Communist Party . "By definition, a friend was an individual who would not let you down even under direct menace to him- or herself; a person to whom one could securely entrust one's controversial thoughts since he or she would never betray them, even under pressure. Friendship thus in a sense became an ultimate value produced in resistance struggles in the Soviet Union". {Link without Title} Greece In had a strength which undid their power." (''Symposium;'' 182c) For Aristotle's position, see Philia . Asia In the Middle East and Central Asia male friendships, while less restricted than in Russia, tend also to be reserved and respectable in nature. Modern west In the Western world, intimate physical contact has been sexualised in the public mind over the last one hundred years and is considered taboo in friendship, especially between two males. However, stylized hugging or kissing may be considered acceptable, depending on the context (see, for example, the kiss the tramp gives the kid in '' The Kid ''). In Spain and other Mediterranean countries men may embrace each other in public and kiss each other on the cheek. This is not limited solely to older generations but rather is present throughout all generations. In young children throughout the modern western world, friendship, usually of a homosocial nature, typically exhibits elements of a closeness and intimacy suppressed later in life in order to conform to societal standards. DECLINE OF FRIENDSHIP The number and quality of friendships for the average American has been declining since at least 1985, according to a 2006 study.http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-22-friendship_x.htm The study states that 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and that the average total number of confidants per person has dropped to 2. In recent times, some thinkers have postulated that modern friendships have lost the force and importance that they had in antiquity. C. S. Lewis for example, in his ''The Four Loves,'' writes: :"To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book." Likewise, Paul Halsall claims that: :"The intense emotional and affective relationships described in the past as "non-sexual" cannot be said to exist today: modern heterosexual men can be buddies, but unless drunk they cannot touch each other, or regularly sleep together. They cannot affirm that an emotional affective relationship with another man is the centrally important relationship in their lives. It is not going too far, is it, to claim that friendship – if used to translate Greek philia or Latin amicitia – hardly exists among heterosexual men in modern Western society." being at the root of a modern decline in the western tradition of friendship: :"Hence, in our cultural context where homosexual desire has for centuries been considered sinful, unnatural and a great evil, the experience of homoerotic desire can be very traumatic for some individuals and severely limit the potential for same-sex friendship. The Danish sociologist Henning Bech , for instance, writes of the anxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy between male friends: :"'The more one has to assure oneself that one's relationship with another man is not homosexual, the more conscious one becomes that it might be, and the more necessary it becomes to protect oneself against it. The result is that friendship gradually becomes impossible.'" Their opinion that fear of being, or being seen as, homosexual has killed off western man's ability to form close friendships with other men is shared by Japanese psychologist Doi Takeo , who claims that male friendships in American society are fraught with homosexual anxiety and thus homophobia is a limiting factor stopping men from establishing deep friendships with other men. The suggestion that friendship contains an ineluctable element of erotic desire is not new, but has been advanced by students of friendship ever since the time of the ancient Greeks, where it comes up in the writings of Plato . More recently, the Austria n philosopher Otto Weininger claimed that: :"There is no friendship between men that has not an element of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility." (''Sex and Character'', 1903) |
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