Politics As Friendship

The most influential of contemporary philosophers, Jacques Derrida, explores the idea of friendship—and its political consequences, past and future—through writings by Aristotle, Nietzsche, Cicero, and more. Until relatively recently, Jacques Derrida was seen by many as nothing more than the high priest of Deconstruction, by turns stimulating and fascinating, yet always somewhat disengaged from the central political questions of our time. Or so it seemed. Derrida’s “political turn,” marked especially by the appearance of Specters of Marx, has surprised some and delighted others. In The Politics of Friendship Derrida renews and enriches this orientation through an examination of the political history of the idea of friendship pursued down the ages. Derrida’s thoughts are haunted throughout the book by the strange and provocative address attributed to Aristotle, “my friends, there is no friend” and its inversions by later philosophers such as Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, Schmitt and Blanchot. The exploration allows Derrida to recall and restage the ways in which all the oppositional couples of Western philosophy and political thought—friendship and enmity, private and public life—have become madly and dangerously unstable. At the same time he dissects genealogy itself, the familiar and male-centered notion of fraternity and the virile virtue whose authority has gone unquestioned in our culture of friendship and our models of democracy The future of the political, for Derrida, becomes the future of friends, the invention of a radically new friendship, of a deeper and more inclusive democracy. This remarkable book, his most profoundly important for many years, offers a challenging and inspiring vision of that future.

Applies Aristotle's argument - that citizenship is like friendship - to the liberal and democratic societies of the present day.

DIVInvestigates friendships between anti-colonial Indians and anti-imperial 'westerners' in late-19th and early 20th centuries, claiming that such inter-cultural collaborations need to be added to annals of non-violent historiography./div

Hutter's study explores the origins of classical conceptions of politics in the theory and practice of friendship in ancient Greece. It analyzes ancient Greek society as one in which political space was organized in terms of the metaphor of friendship. Tracing the importance of male friendship groupings in Greek society, and comparing them to similar formations in primitive societies known to us through anthropological data, it shows how political processes were conceived as friendship processes, and demonstrates how important friendship groupings were for these processes. Greek political philosophies are seen as universalizations of the principles of friendship. Hutter shows to what extent Platonism and Aristotlelianism as well as Stoicism received their inspiration from the practice of friendship. In particular, the theory and practice of Greek democracy are seen to be derived from the principles of friendship. Finally, the book shows the application of Greek theories of friendship to Roman society by Cicero. Noting the differences and similarities between Greece and Rome, it explores the redefinition that the theory of friendship underwent when applied to the Roman context. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the role of friendship in mass society and its politics.

In Friendship and Politics in Post-Revolutionary France, Sarah Horowitz brings together the political and cultural history of post-revolutionary France to illuminate how French society responded to and recovered from the upheaval of the French Revolution. The Revolution led to a heightened sense of distrust and divided the nation along ideological lines. In the wake of the Terror, many began to express concerns about the atomization of French society. Friendship, though, was regarded as one bond that could restore trust and cohesion. Friends relied on each other to serve as confidants; men and women described friendship as a site of both pleasure and connection. Because trust and cohesion were necessary to the functioning of post-revolutionary parliamentary life, politicians turned to friends and ideas about friendship to create this solidarity. Relying on detailed analyses of politicians’ social networks, new tools arising from the digital humanities, and examinations of behind-the-scenes political transactions, Horowitz makes clear the connection between politics and emotions in the early nineteenth century, and she reevaluates the role of women in political life by showing the ways in which the personal was the political in the post-revolutionary era.

In the history of Western thought, friendship's relationship to politics is checkered. Friendship was seen as key to understanding political life in the ancient world, but it was then ignored for centuries. Today, friendship has again become a desirable framework for political interaction. In Friendship Reconsidered, P. E. Digeser contends that our rich and varied practices of friendship multiply and moderate connections to politics. Along the way, she sets forth a series of ideals that appreciates friendship's many forms and its dynamic relationship to individuality, citizenship, political and legal institutions, and international relations. Digeser argues that, as a set of practices bearing a family resemblance to one another, friendship calls our attention to the importance of norms of friendly action and the mutual recognition of motive. Focusing on these attributes clarifies the place of self-interest and duty in friendship and points to its compatibility with the pursuit of individuality. She shows how friendship can provide islands of stability in a sea of citizen-strangers and, in a delegitimized political environment, a bridge between differences. She also explores how political and legal institutions can both undermine and promote friendship. Digeser then looks to the positive potential of international friendships, in which states mutually strive to protect the just character of one another's institutions and policies. Friendship's repertoire of motives and manifestations complicates its relationship to politics, Digeser concludes, but it can help us realize the limits and possibilities for generating new opportunities for cooperation.

A brilliant and witty postmodern critique of ethics, framed as a contemporary restaging of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. John D. Caputo undertakes a passionate, poetic, and satiric search for the basis of an ethics in the postmodern situation. Restaging Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, Caputo defends the notion of obligation without ethics, of responsibility without the support of ethical foundations. Retelling the story of Abraham and Isaac, he strikes the pose of a postmodern-day Johannes de Silentio, accompanied by communications from such startling figures as Johanna de Silentio, Felix Sineculpa, and Magdalena de la Cruz. In dialogue with the thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Lyotard, Caputo forges a challenging, original account of what is possible and what is not possible for a continentalist ethics today. “Against Ethics is a bold work. . . . A counterethics whose multiple voices will be heard long after the trivializing arguments of many analytic ethicists have vanished and the arcane formulations of many postmoderns have been jettisoned.” —Edith Wyschogrod “Caputo provides a brilliant new analysis of the limits of ethics. . . . Essential reading for anyone concerned with the philosophical issues raised in postmodernity.” —Drucilla Cornell “One of the most important works on philosophical ethics written in recent years. . . . Caputo speaks with a passion and concern that are rare in academic philosophy.” —Mark C. Taylor “Against Ethics is beautifully written, clever, learned, thought-provoking, and even inspiring.” —Theological Studies “Writing in the form of his ideas, Caputo offers the reader a truly exquisite reading experience. . . . His iconic style mirrors a truly refreshing honesty that draws the reader in to play.” —Quarterly Journal of Speech

Today, friendship, love and sexuality are mostly viewed as private, personal and informal relations. In the mediaeval and early modern period, just like in ancient times, this was different. The classical philosophy of friendship (Aristotle) included both friendship and love in the concept of philia. It was also linked to an argument about the virtues needed to become an excellent member of the city state. Thus, close relations were not only thought to be a matter of pleasant gatherings in privacy, but just as much a matter of ethics and politics.What, then, happened to the classical ideas of close relations when they were transmitted to philosophers, clerical and monastic thinkers, state officials or other people in the medieval and early modern period? To what extent did friendship transcend the distinctions between private and public that then existed? How were close relations shaped in practice? Did dialogues with close friends help to contribute to the process of subject-formation in the Renaissance and Enlightenment? To what degree did institutions of power or individual thinkers find it necessary to caution against friendship or love and sexuality?