Seven Essays on Friendships
A reading list....
Earlier this month, as I tried to tuck my unwell mother into bed, I turned on the TV to watch Notting Hill for the nth time. My mother doesn’t fully understand English, but over the years has grown familiar with the visuals of some movies that make me endlessly happy. Drugged, and sleepy, she nestled in with me and watched the movie, our friendship quietly blossoming from a cliched love-hate mother-daughter relationship to a meaningful connection that’s refreshing and constantly evolving. In the last handful of years, the bond between us has transcended into a more congenial one. We are now more interested in each other’s well-being — always concocting a new recipe for the other, thinking of a better joke to crack the other one up.
As I’ve pondered over this new, unexpected friendship I had so strongly yearned for as a child, I’ve also contemplated my friendships growing up: The childhood best friend for whom I was never enough. The junior in my high school who went from being a best friend to a friend with benefits. The college roommate who I, admittedly, didn’t think was cool enough to be friends with. Over time, I’ve lost more friends than I’ve managed to make. I’ve realized that over the last three decades, my friendships have all been so different that “friendship” has become hard to define.
A reading list of seven essays that I have found myself going back to over and over again in the last few years…
The last two decades I spent on social media have also changed the way I’ve made friends. Whether I met people on MySpace or through Facebook, or stumbled on new friends by accident — I once dialed a person by mistake and started SMSing with her, thinking she was my cousin — I’ve kept busy creating and maintaining my own tribe of friends online. People at home, however — from family members with former boyfriends — tend to be suspicious of friends I’ve met on the internet. How do you know her? Did you go to college together? She’s in Mumbai and you’re in Delhi, so how did you meet? Then there are those clutch of valued work friendships that have evolved to hold so much more meaning over time. Trans-continental friendships with someone I merely went to college with, or a guarded bond with a certain someone whom I might’ve only ever met once in person — I hold many of these virtual and non-internet(y) friendships close to the heart. That is not to say that I haven’t often times struggled to maintain them, to keep up with their moving rhythms and changing landscapes with shifting times.
It is with all this in mind that I share a reading list of seven essays that I have found myself going back to over and over again in the last few years.
What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life? (Rhaina Cohen, The Atlantic , October 2020)
Rhaina Cohen’s essay outlines society’s general lack of regard for platonic relationships. In a world where marriage and family are key currencies to living a socially agreed upon life, friendships have taken a backseat. As someone who has always pondered about the exclusion of even a mention of friends in Indian families like mine, I felt this piece in my bones. The essay cuts deep into the social codes that prohibit us from mentioning friends as our first choice of family, much like in my own life. When I was in school, weekends were pious brackets of time, reserved only for family. Even suggesting to hang out with friends was forbidden. It was different though, if I made an excuse of studies, an exam, or a group presentation.
Cohen also underlines the importance of approaching friendship as the foundation for every meaningful relationship in one’s life — be it familial or romantic. Conditioned to think only one way, in the first few adult years of my life I hardly had the knack to allow friendships the room they required in my life. I was quick to close them off into specific segments of my world that didn’t directly interfere with my regular activities. Little did I understand then that friendships, as Cohen emphasizes, could be my whole life.
She challenges the norm in which our partners are expected to be our priorities and points out how this notion doesn’t seem to be questioned, except in queer circles.
“Just in the past several months, experts and public intellectuals from disparate ideological persuasions have encouraged heterosexual couples to look to the queer and immigrant communities for healthy models of marriage and family. The coronavirus pandemic, by underscoring human vulnerability and interdependence, has inspired people to imagine networks of care beyond the nuclear family. Polyamory and asexuality, both of which push back against the notion that a monogamous sexual relationship is the key to a fulfilling adult life, are rapidly gaining visibility. Expanding the possible roles that friends can play in one another’s lives could be the next frontier.”
My Buddy (Patti Smith, The New Yorker , August 2017)
When I first stumbled upon Patti Smith’s essay, I let out a deep sigh of joy. I’ve devoured each of Smith’s books, read all of her poetry, and listened to her music, and I knew her piece about her friend and fellow creator, the late playwright and actor Sam Shepard, would be as beautiful as her other work. Shepard was a multi-hyphenate whose work outlived him, and there couldn’t have been anyone better than Smith to pen this ode to his life and their friendship. The essay, much like Smith’s poetry, sings with an ease that worms its way into my heart each time I reread it. There are surprises too, but the writing carries a charm — perhaps an offshoot of Smith’s deeply lived and enjoyed life — and leaves me asking for more.
Just a late-night phone call out of a blue, as startling as a canvas by Yves Klein; a blue to get lost in, a blue that might lead anywhere. I’d happily awake, stir up some Nescafé and we’d talk about anything. About the emeralds of Cortez, or the white crosses in Flanders Fields, about our kids, or the history of the Kentucky Derby. But mostly we talked about writers and their books. Latin writers. Rudy Wurlitzer. Nabokov. Bruno Schulz.
There I Almost Am: On Envy and Twinship (Jean Garnett, The Yale Review , May 2021)
Jean Garnett’s essay is, at the surface level, about twinship. But it goes beyond this, delving deep into topics of sisterhood, envy, and self-destruction. Though Garnett writes about her relationship with her twin sister from both a personal and professional perspective, the nature of their relationship echoes one of friendship. Garnett ruminates about being in constant competition with her sister, and how that has evolved into an uglier feeling of envy — what Socrates called the “ulcer of the soul.”
She writes:
“I remember how, in our early twenties when my sister was at her thinnest, I was always angling for a view of her, using barback mirrors and public bathrooms and shop windows to catch secret glimpses. I remember how perverted I felt whenever our eyes met in the reflection and she caught me in the act of envy. I am never more disgusted with myself than when I am engaged in this covert looking and assessing, treating her body as a human mirror. But I still do it. I spy on her. She’ll be walking or crying or dancing or getting dressed or trying to tell me something important, and I’ll become aware that my eyes are scanning her as though she were a bar code.”
This is How a Friendship Ends: A Recipe for Miso Ginger Carrot Bisque (Nina Coomes, Catapult , March 2022)
In this hybrid essay that’s part of Nina Coome’s narrative recipe series, Half Recipes , she comes to adult friendships with a new, encouraging language. She writes specifically about severing a friendship that was no longer meaningful to her and the other person — one that she writes was not built to transition, and had to end. There is an immediacy, and a strong sense of self-empathy in Coomes' writing. In letting this friend go, she is not only allowing herself to grow, but also making room for both of them to accommodate newer versions of themselves. The recipe format of this essay makes it even more endearing.
“In retrospect, we both were growing out of our old selves, slowly becoming adults. I can’t give you an exact date or dramatic dinner where we stopped being friends. I can only say that it was a slow fading, a gradual and at times painful transition from being in communication every day, to every week, to every few months, to once a year and, now, not at all.”
Friendships Have Never Been Harder to Maintain (Jo Piazza, The Cut , March 2022)
In this essay, Jo Piazza meditates on the joy and beauty of friendship in our lives. She writes about contemporary friendship from the perspective of someone who knows firsthand what it’s like to be lonely, having lived in San Francisco in her mid-30s with no friends. Piazza highlights how crucial it is to find one's tribe and how maintaining that is also ongoing, intentional work. During the pandemic, these responsibilities became even more complicated, leaving people without friends, or in unbalanced friendships.
“A friend is often seen as less important than a husband or a wife and definitely ranks lower than blood relations. So despite legions of studies proving they are essential to long-term mental and physical health, friendships are often the first relationships to fall by the wayside when life gets crazy. It seems so easy to make friends in college and your early 20s, when you’re more carefree and have the hours to dedicate to the groundwork.”
Friendship (Devon Brody, The Paris Review, July 2023)
It doesn't happen too often in life that we find ourselves in a friendship that leans more towards being a romance. Out of nowhere you are drawn towards a person you know little about. They might be a neighbor, a coworker, a bookshop checkout person. You want to know everything about them, the thoughts that circle inside their heads, the dreams and hopes they nurture, who they call family. Something like this, if felt in the context of a romance, might take a more heavy, underlined, nuanced meaning. But often we tend to slight these efforts in friendships.
In this essay, Brody writes along similar lines about a friendship that is so unthreatening, so slight, so simple it becomes the all-encompassing ultimate relationship of their life, and yet not. Through the essay Brody tries to capture the essence of such friendships that become more than the sum total of their parts, making us look at them from a new lens, and mine them for more than what they offer. In the essay, they parse the comfort of being there for each other, the shared knowledge of never betraying in any way, and that cocoon-like space that exists in the cervices of such fleeting relationships against the vast canvas of marriages, flings and familial ties.
Brody writes:
“On the phone I asked him if he was still there. He said he was, and I started crying a little, then stopped, I think. I asked him if he could meet me at the hospital. He said he would, still in the same tone.”
This sense of belonging is unique, ephemeral and also a touchstone of a matured way of looking at people. I feel this essay makes for an unmissable selection on this list, giving me the much-needed space, time and tenderness to regard these friendships with a love that is often denied to them, and by extension, us.
It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart (Jennifer Senior, The Atlantic , March 2022)
In this essay, Jennifer Senior focuses on how friendships sometimes exist vaguely during midlife. She delves deeply into the intersection of friendship and aging, and how friendships come to an end. At the start of the essay, Senior structures the piece as a connection between two women, Elisa and Rebecca, and how their friendship comes to a “painful dissolution.” She then blends socio-cultural commentary with her own personal narrative, writing about the friends she has lost over the years. This speaks to readers who have lost one too many friends and are now at the cusp of a kind of change.
I decided to close my reading list with Senior’s essay as it felt like a good place to let things be. Her essay left me with thoughts, feelings and ruminations that bordered on the pensive. The essay made me think deeply about the friendships I have lost, and how those losses sit within my current state of mind. As I enjoyed the repose of this serene essay, I felt other readers might also be able to find such moments for themselves.
“You lose friends to marriage, to parenthood, to politics—even when you share the same politics. (Political obsessions are a big, underdiscussed friendship-ender in my view, and they seem to only deepen with age.) You lose friends to success, to failure, to flukish strokes of good or ill luck. (Envy, dear God—it’s the mother of all unspeakables in a friendship, the lulu of all shames.) These life changes and upheavals don’t just consume your friends’ time and attention. They often reveal unseemly characterological truths about the people you love most, behaviors and traits you previously hadn’t imagined possible.”
Anandi Mishra is an essayist and policy professional, whose work has been published by the LA Review of Books, Aeon, The Atlantic, Electric Literature, among others. She has also worked as a reporter for The Times of India and The Hindu. She lives in Delhi and writes about it in her newsletter Scurf .
Memoir Land is a reader-supported publication that pays contributors. To support this work, become a paid subscriber.
Ready for more? Get the Reddit appA place where to post summaries of low- and medium-quality human nature papers (mostly from psychologists and economists). Treasure your friends, the top of your love hierarchy – Anna Machin | Aeon EssaysBy continuing, you agree to our User Agreement and acknowledge that you understand the Privacy Policy . Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator appYou’ve set up two-factor authentication for this account. Enter a 6-digit backup codeCreate your username and password. Reddit is anonymous, so your username is what you’ll go by here. Choose wisely—because once you get a name, you can’t change it. Reset your passwordEnter your email address or username and we’ll send you a link to reset your password Check your inboxAn email with a link to reset your password was sent to the email address associated with your account Choose a Reddit account to continueSubscribe to our newsletter50 great articles and essays about love and relationships, love and life, masters of love by emily esfahani smith, this is emo by chuck klosterman, how to pick your life partner by tim urban, my superpower is being alone forever by joe berkowitz and joanna neborsky, it's not them, it's you by jen doll, together alone by michael hobbes, liking is for cowards by jonathan franzen, 30 more essays about life, relationships, in relationships, be deliberate by emily esfahani smith and galena rhoades, endless love by aaron ben-ze’ev, does a more equal marriage mean less sex by lori gottlieb, deeply, truly (but not physically) in love by lauren slater, is an open marriage a happier marriage by susan dominus, the breakup museum by leslie jamison, tinder and the dawn of the "dating apocalypse" by nancy jo sales, dating online by emily witt, love me tinder by emily witt, tinder hearted by allison p. davis, a million first dates by dan slater, mormons, orthodox jews and the dating crisis by jon birger, dating by numbers by kevin poulsen, why we cheat by lisa taddeo, why women stray by david buss, the adultery arms race by michelle cottle, the cuckold by james harms, why we love by helen fisher, essays in love by alain de botton, all about love by bell hooks, a general theory of love by thomas lewis, fari amini and richard lannon, 100 more great nonfiction books, see also..., 50 great psychology articles, 50 great essays about life, 20 great articles about happiness.  The Psychology of LoveLove by lauren slater, the science of love by barbara fredrickson, the biology of attraction by helen e. fisher, love is like cocaine by helen fisher, the rejection lab by alison kinney, there's no such thing as everlasting love by emily esfahani smith, 50 more articles about psychology, men, women, sex and darwin by natalie angier, 12 revelations about sex by alain de botton, safe-sex lies by meghan daum, why my wife won't sleep with me by sean elder, women who want to want by daniel bergner, 50 more articles about sex, kids these days, no labels, no drama, right by jordana narin, why developing serious relationships in your 20s matters by elizabeth spiers, like. flirt. ghost. by mary h. k. choi, friends without benefits by nancy jo sales, boys on the side by hanna rosin, 50 more articles about growing up, the limits of friendship by maria konnikova, the type of love that makes people happiest by arthur c. brooks, how friendships change in adulthood by julie beck, it’s your friends who break your heart by jennifer senior, friends of a certain age by alex williams, a guide to friendship, schmoozing, and social advancement by glenn o'brien, the man date by jennifer 8. lee.  About The Electric Typewriter We search the net to bring you the best nonfiction, articles, essays and journalism Reason and MeaningPhilosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life, profound essays from aeon magazine. Over the last year, I have found many good articles at Aeon —a digital magazine of ideas, philosophy, and culture. I had intended to write posts about these many pieces but alas I have not found the time. So instead I will link to some of the thought-provoking pieces they’ve published that I’ve read followed by a single sentence description of their content. “What Animals Think of Death” (Animals wrestle with the concept of death and mortality.) “Do We Send The Goo?” (If we’re alone in the universe should we do anything about it?) “The Mind Does Not Exist” (Why there’s no such thing as the mind and nothing is mental.) “You Are A Network” (The self is not singular but a fluid network of identities.) “After Neurodiversity” (Neurodiversity is not enough, we should embrace psydiversity.) “Lies And Honest Mistakes” (Our epistemic crisis is essentially ethical and so are its solutions.) “Ideas That Work” (Our most abstract concepts emerged as solutions to our needs.) “We Are Nature” (Even the Anthropocene is nature at work transforming itself.) “The Seed Of Suffering” (What the p-factor says about the root of all mental illness.) “Authenticity Is A Sham” (A history of authenticity from Jesus to self-help and beyond.) “Who Counts As A Victim?” (The pantomime drama of victims and villains conceals the real horrors of war.) “Nihilism” (If you believe in nihilism do you believe in anything?) “The Science Of Wisdom” (How psychologists have found the empirical path to wisdom.) “The Semi-Satisfied Life” (For Schopenhauer happiness is a state of semi-satisfaction.) “Bonfire Of The Humanities” (The role of history in a society afflicted by short-termism.) “How Cosmic Is The Cosmos?” (Can Buddhism explain what came before the big bang?) “Is The Universe A Conscious Mind?” (Cosmopsychism explains why the universe is fine-tuned for life.) “Dreadful Dads” (What the childless fathers of existentialism teach real dads.) “End of Story” (How does an atheist tell his son about death?) “Buddhism And Self-Deception” (How Buddhism resolves the paradox of self-deception.) “The happiness ruse” (How did feeling good become a matter of relentless, competitive work?”) “ How to be an Epicurean” (Forget Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics; try being an Epicurean.) “The Greatest Use of Life” (William James on whether life is worth living.) “Anger is temporary madness: the Stoics knew how to curb it” (How to Avoid the triggers.) “Faith: Why Is the Language of Transhumanism and Religion So Similar?” (AI and religion.) “Endless Fun” (What will we do for all eternity after uploading?) “There Is No Death, Only A Series of Eternal ‘Nows'” (You don’t actually die.) “Save The Universe” (It’s only a matter of time until it dies.) “ When Hope is a Hindrance ” (Hope in dark times is no match for action.) Oh, to have more time to read and learn.  Share this:2 thoughts on “ profound essays from aeon magazine ”. I discovered this site a year or more ago and enjoy it immensely. Sadly, there’s not enough time in my day to take so many of these articles and videos in. I end up selecting several that interests me the most. I would strongly recommend Aeon and even support it if you agree. Aeon is a great magazine. But like you, I’m overwhelmed by how much they publish. Leave a ReplyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .  A Love Letter to Evolution & FriendshipThe first essay in my friendship series, a brief history lesson, and a poem..  Writing one essay about the most important thing in my life felt daunting, so I’ve decided to make it a series instead. Welcome to essay one of love letters to my friends. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? My story isn’t unique: I was a young girl who longed for friendship. As someone with a very small family, I lacked the close-knit family dynamics of growing up with siblings and cousins. An estranged father coupled with odd age gaps with my two sisters, I mostly grew up alone with my mom. When I played at home, I played by myself. I made up my own worlds and had imaginary friends. At school, I found solace in my (real) friends and treasured being around them. I’m lucky enough to have had friends for over 20 years at this point (hey, wtf?). Special shoutout to Kate, my first friend and practically my sister, who is in the cover photo of this piece with me, with our little, toothy grins. And Julia, my friend since kindergarten, who is also really more like my sister. Since I was young, I have seen my friends as my family. Perhaps even closer than my own blood. I’ve been in many friend groups, friend group chats, friend vacations, friend fights. I have many long distance friends. And I’ve had many friend break-ups which sometimes hurt more than actual break-ups. I’ve lost friends. I’ve grieved friends. I’ve seen friends come and go, slowly drifting apart for no other reason than life waiting for no one. I’ve had certain friends for only a season, which, for me, is the hardest one to come to terms with. I want my friends in all of my seasons, but not all friends can fit in every single one. I long for friendship and connection. We all do. But why? Why and how do we find ourselves in these special relationships? It seems silly to try and quantify friendship and bring language to a type of love and kinship that has existed from the first molecule. But let’s try. Humans need other humans —I love that about us. I love our dependency for each other, our deep innate desire to gravitate towards community and groups. Biologically, this has developed in us as an evolutionary warning signal: we need social connection. Maybe not as much as food or water, but pretty damn close. If you’re curious about the science behind this, read this great article. Our ancestors formed together for basic survival. It could allow them to hunt larger animals, fend off predators, and protect each other from danger, like scanning the horizons for danger while the other slept or bathed. Naturally, over time, we became dependent on each other as we, quite literally, needed each other to survive. As humanity developed, our social connection did too. It became more than survival from predators and more about communication and connection. It became our DNA. Our brains actually began to grow larger due to navigating numerous social interactions that were so cognitively demanding. (Or at least according to anthropologist Robin Dunbar.) Bottom line: we need each other. I am so lucky to need my friends, I am so lucky to be needed. And we not only need each other, we protect each other. Innately, we are protective of our fellow man. How lucky are we! Though we are no longer fending off wild boars (or at least I’m not), us humans have evolved into socially dependent beings. Our mental and physical well being depends on it. Yes, even the introverts. We all want to be known and loved. It’s what sets us apart. There’s so much more I want to say and so much more I want to gush about on the topic of friendship. I’ll get there, but for now, here’s a quote from Dolly Alderton that provides a sneak peak into my next love letter, “Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.” Below is a lil poem I wrote about us humans finding each other. Send it to a friend, tell them you love them, <3. Evolution as Kindling Cell to cell, I have reached for you and found you. Grappling, for the light switch in the dark, you and I, equals, of the same blood and chromosomes and thumbs and all the other things that make us human. Your eyes a shade of amber found sticky in fossils, you, a living artifact. How did we find ourselves here? Our fingers desperately stretching towards the sun, our legs bouncy with buoyancy, our brains growing with membrane and a small thing called hope. Cutting down banana leaves for shelter and finding magic between two sticks and friction. This itch for each other, we could not scratch without the others hand, this trust we could not find without the others falling. Our bodies finding one another, misshapen and unruly. Tangled hair and all. Here, lay down for a while, near the fire. I’ll poke the flames. I’ll make sure it burns through the night. I’ll take the first watch. — Carah Gedeon  Spit Take is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Ready for more?
READ ONLINE First Love: Essays on Friendship (Author Lilly Dancyger)(download pdf books) first love: essays on friendship by lilly dancyger.  Overview : A bold, poignant essay collection that treats women?s friendships as the love stories they truly are, from the critically acclaimed author of Negative Space.Lilly Dancyger always thought of her closest friendships as great loves, complex and profound as any romance. When her beloved cousin was murdered just as both girls were entering adulthood, Dancyger felt a new urgency in her devotion to the women in her life?a desire to hold her friends close while she still could. In First Love, this urgency runs through a striking exploration of the bonds between women, from the intensity of adolescent best friendship and fluid sexuality to mothering and chosen family.Each essay in this incisive collection is grounded in a close female friendship in Dancyger?s life, reaching outward to dissect cultural assumptions about identity and desire, and the many ways women create space for each other in a world that wants us small. Seamlessly weaving personal experience with literature and pop Download Now ⇒ https://access.bookstaph.com/195888551-first-love By click link in above! wish you have good luck and enjoy reading your book. (Works on PC, Ipad, Android, iOS, Tablet, MAC) Read Now ⇒ https://access.bookstaph.com/195888551-first-love Keyboard ControlsThe following keyboard controls are supported across Notebook.ai. All keyboard controls are disabled when editing a document or notebook page.
Friendship Essay: Useful Tips on How to Write a Successful Text The essay on friendship is a typical assignment for students during college studies. It implies some reflection on personal attitude towards relationships between mates. This topic is quite close to anybody's heart. When writing this kind of work, one is certain to analyze
Here we offer helpful tips and recommendations on how to write a friendship essay, including the outline details, structure, ideas, and whatnot. Let's start the exploration! A Friendship Essay: Its Essence and PurposeThe definition of the issue is on the surface. It is a project concerning friendship between two or more persons. This phenomenon may be described from many sides, activating one's memories and making the writer think about feelings, moral values, deeds and their consequences, and other psychological matters. When creating this type of essay, you may talk about
As for the purpose of this assignment, it points at the importance of friends and friendship in everyone's life. Being social creatures, people need to communicate with others, and close relations help them to exist and influence their wellness. In a few words, this work appears to be a tool for self-reflection and self-understanding. When you are preparing even for a short essay on friendship, you are to investigate the essence of the phenomenon – its nature, forms, and manifestation – and its impact on your being. Analyzing the course of the relationship – its pros and cons – you are sure to understand its real significance. Moreover, it helps to realize that a true matter is priceless and ageless. How to Write an Essay on Friendship?Exploring the concept of friendship, organize the material according to the traditional system. Friendship Essay StructureThere are three important components, providing a successful work.
Friendship Essay OutlineThe most effective way of creating a writing project about friendship is making an outline, where you are to mention all structural components in a more detailed manner. It helps in organizing the data logically and consistently. Besides, it assists in understanding the hierarchy of the arguments and to see the connection between the parts of the work. When making the outline, take into consideration that every friendship paragraph of the body should touch upon a separate argument. Use here topical sentences, arguments, and illustrating matters to approve them. Friendship Essay: Ideas to InspireHere is a general outline, you may use as a basis for the essay.
TOP Writing Tips for Friendship EssayBefore writing the friendship essay, hold a topical brainstorming session:
Now, it's time to start!
So, the concept of friendship is multifaceted, giving the possibility to create both short issues and long analytical papers. The central idea here is to understand the essence of the relationships between people, their various aspects, forms, and manifestations. If you find any difficulty with the narration, for instance, how to introduce your friend, an example may be provided by Aithor . It is a professional text-generator tool, operating with a wide range of languages and options to present a fine essay on a chosen topic. Related articlesParaphrasing vs plagiarism: do they really differ. Academic assignments require much knowledge and skill. One of the most important points is rendering and interpreting material one has ever studied. A person should avoid presenting word-for-word plagiarism but express his or her thoughts and ideas as much as possible. However, every fine research is certain to be based on the previous issues, data given, or concepts suggested. And here it's high time to differentiate plagiarism and paraphrasing, to realize its peculiarities and cases of usage. ... How to Write a Dialogue in an Essay: Useful TipsA correct usage of dialogues in essays may seem quite difficult at first sight. Still there are special issues, for instance, narrative or descriptive papers, where this literary technique will be a good helper in depicting anyone's character. How to add dialogues to the work? How to format them correctly? Let's discuss all relevant matters to master putting conversation episodes into academic essays. Essay Dialogue: Definition & Purpose A dialogue is a literary technique for presenting a con ... How To Write Essays Faster Using AI?Creating various topical texts is an obligatory assignment during studies. For a majority of students, it seems like a real headache. It is quite difficult to write a smooth and complex work, meeting all the professors' requirements. However, thanks to modern technologies there appeared a good way of getting a decent project – using AI to write essays. We'd like to acquaint you with Aithor, an effective tool of this kind, able to perform fine and elaborated texts, and, of course, inspiration, i ... What Is Self-Plagiarism & How To Avoid ItHave you ever thought about whether using your own work again could be seen as copying? It might seem strange, but self-plagiarism is a real issue in school and work writing. Let's look at what this means and learn how to avoid self-plagiarism so your work stays original and ethical. What is self-plagiarism? Self-plagiarism, also called auto-plagiarism or duplicate plagiarism, happens when a writer uses parts of their old work without saying where it came from. This isn't just about copying w ... What is Citation and Why Should You Cite the Sources When Writing ContentWhen we write something for school, work, or just for fun, we often use ideas and facts from other places. This makes us ask: what is a citation in writing? Let's find out what this means and why it's really important when we write. What is Citation? Citation in research refers to the practice of telling your readers where you got your information, ideas, or exact words from. It's like showing them the path to the original information you used in your writing. When you cite something, you us ... Top 10 Use Cases for AI WritersWriting is changing a lot because of AI. But don't worry — AI won't take human writers' jobs. It's a tool that can make our work easier and help us write better. When we use AI along with our own skills, we can create good content faster and better. AI can help with many parts of writing, from coming up with ideas to fixing the final version. Let's look at the top 10 ways how to use AI for content creation and how it can make your writing better. What Is AI Content Writing? AI content writin ... Can Plagiarism Be Detected on PDF?Plagiarism has been a challenge for a long time in writing. It's easy to find information online, which might make some people use it without saying where it came from. But plagiarism isn't just taking someone else's words. Sometimes, we might do it by accident or even use our own old work without mentioning it. When people plagiarize, they can get into serious trouble. They might lose others' trust or even face legal problems. Luckily, we now have tools to detect plagiarism. But what about PDF ... Plagiarism: 7 Types in DetailYour professor says that it is necessary to avoid plagiarism when writing a research paper, essay, or any project based on the works of other people, so to say, any reference source. But what does plagiarism mean? What types of it exist? And how to formulate the material to get rid of potential bad consequences while rendering original texts? Today we try to answer these very questions. Plagiarism: Aspect in Brief Plagiarism is considered to be a serious breach, able to spoil your successful ...
Choose Easygoessay.com and discover a better writing service online! Essay on Love and Friendship: What is True Love?Love, friendship, sympathy and likeness – these feelings are the brightest moments of our life. They become the source of joy and positive energy but can become the reason of big problems and disillusionment at the same time. It’s important to know the notions of these feelings and their characteristics to avoid possible mistakes. Very often lack of knowledge in this field can lead to misunderstandings and finally to poor or even tragic consequences. Sometimes people mix love and friendship or love and passion or sexual attraction. All these feelings are important and reflect different aspect of our life but not all of them are enough to create a family. For non-professional it’s hard to give appraisal of such notions as love and friendship. Professionals also don’t share common opinion on this subject. Bruce King in his book Human Sexuality Today compares love and friendship finding differences and similarities. Both feelings – love and friendship closely correlate and interact, as they possess a lot of common characteristics. First of all love and friendship is relationship, which requires time, effort and many other characteristics, which form mutual relationship. Both, love and friendship assume emotional involvement, care, respect and devotion. Both feelings undergo transformations with the flow of time and go through different stages. You can have several friends but situations of being in loving relationships with several people are very rare and are regarded rather like deviation, than something normal. This is one of the differences between love and friendship. Another incontestable difference between love and friendship is sexual attraction. Friendship usually doesn’t assume any sexual attraction at all and most forms of love (in the context of relationship between people who are in love) include sexual attraction. Love can be reciprocal or not, and in this field it’s expressed more like an attitude. It’s hard to imagine reciprocal friendship. It either exists or not. Friendship is rather a relationship, which emerges on the joint of several spheres i.e. emotional, mental, physical, etc. Like we could make sure, it’s hard to explain the notion of love or friendship. It becomes even harder, when we start talking about the true love. There is no one distinct definition of true love. It’s a subjective feeling and means different things for different people. Like any feeling or attitude, it has an empirical nature and can be rather felt than explained. It’s a common known fact that words contain only shape of the thought or sense we put in them and giving explanation of true love and trying to put it into words we lose the main thing – empirical feeling. Being a feeling, true love can have different means of realization and possess different forms. For one person true love can be a complete involvement in the relationship and sharing every moment of life together. For another person true love can mean a complete freedom. And both will be right as true love can have so many manifestations that it makes it merely impossible to put it in rigid limits or some definite forms. To my mind, there is one thing, which distinguishes any healthy, positive relationship, whether it’s love or friendship. It’s a kind of relationship or feeling, which makes you happier, brings new positive emotions and feelings even in the periods of conflicts and misunderstandings, which are inevitable part of any relationship.
EasyGoEssay.com Can Write an Essay on Love and Friendship for You!Order Custom Essay Prices Starting at $10.95 per Page! Writing Services
Best Prices
Custom Paper Features
More Services
Company profile
© 2004-2014 EGE. EasyGoEssay. All rights reserved. EasyGoEssay.com is a professional custom writing service that provides high quality, original and creative custom written papers. We write essays, research papers, term papers, thesis papers, dissertations etc and provide other online writing services. All our custom papers are written from scratch by professional native English-speaking writers. Disclaimer: Services provided by Easygoessay.com are meant for research purposes and should be used with proper reference. Essay on Friendship for Students and Children500+ words essay on friendship. Friendship is one of the greatest bonds anyone can ever wish for. Lucky are those who have friends they can trust. Friendship is a devoted relationship between two individuals. They both feel immense care and love for each other. Usually, a friendship is shared by two people who have similar interests and feelings.  You meet many along the way of life but only some stay with you forever. Those are your real friends who stay by your side through thick and thin. Friendship is the most beautiful gift you can present to anyone. It is one which stays with a person forever. True FriendshipA person is acquainted with many persons in their life. However, the closest ones become our friends. You may have a large friend circle in school or college , but you know you can only count on one or two people with whom you share true friendship. There are essentially two types of friends, one is good friends the other are true friends or best friends. They’re the ones with whom we have a special bond of love and affection. In other words, having a true friend makes our lives easier and full of happiness.  Most importantly, true friendship stands for a relationship free of any judgments. In a true friendship, a person can be themselves completely without the fear of being judged. It makes you feel loved and accepted. This kind of freedom is what every human strives to have in their lives. In short, true friendship is what gives us reason to stay strong in life. Having a loving family and all is okay but you also need true friendship to be completely happy. Some people don’t even have families but they have friends who’re like their family only. Thus, we see having true friends means a lot to everyone. Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas Importance of FriendshipFriendship is important in life because it teaches us a great deal about life. We learn so many lessons from friendship which we won’t find anywhere else. You learn to love someone other than your family. You know how to be yourself in front of friends. Friendship never leaves us in bad times. You learn how to understand people and trust others. Your real friends will always motivate you and cheer for you. They will take you on the right path and save you from any evil. Similarly, friendship also teaches you a lot about loyalty. It helps us to become loyal and get loyalty in return. There is no greater feeling in the world than having a friend who is loyal to you. Moreover, friendship makes us stronger. It tests us and helps us grow. For instance, we see how we fight with our friends yet come back together after setting aside our differences. This is what makes us strong and teaches us patience. Therefore, there is no doubt that best friends help us in our difficulties and bad times of life. They always try to save us in our dangers as well as offer timely advice. True friends are like the best assets of our life because they share our sorrow, sooth our pain and make us feel happy. { “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [{ “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is the significance of friendship?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Friendships are important in life because they teach us a lot of lessons. Everyone needs friends to share their happiness and sadness. Friendship makes life more entertaining and it makes you feel loved.”} }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is true friendship?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”:”True friendship means having a relationship free of any formalities. It is free from any judgments and it makes you feel loved and accepted.”} }] } Customize your course in 30 secondsWhich class are you in. 
Leave a Reply Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Download the App
Oops! Looks like we're having trouble connecting to our server.Refresh your browser window to try again. Related Searches
This is not a hardcover version. This is the version, no key, permanent use, can be copied and used on any device The product download link will be automatically sent to the email address you provided. Sometimes the system may fail, leading to a delay in sending, or our emails are blocked, listed as spam, if you have not received an email from us within 30 minutes, Please contact us via the email attached at the footer . We will send it to you immediately.  First Love: Essays on FriendshipWrite a review.
 Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire A Spy in the House of Love (First Edition, New) Friendship Bracelets Single Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories (eBook PDF) What is Friendship? From First Breath to Last: A Story About Love, Womanhood and Aging (eBook PDF) Twenty-First Century Marianne Moore: Essays from a Critical Renaissance One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting in (eBook PDF) Book of Odds From Lightning Strikes to Love at First Sight, the Odds of Everyday LifeThis is not a hardcover version. This is the version, no key, permanent use, can be copied and used on any device The product download link will be automatically sent to the email address you provided. Sometimes the system may fail, leading to a delay in sending, or our emails are blocked, listed as spam, if you have not received an email from us within 30 minutes, Please contact us via the email attached at the footer . We will send it to you immediately.  First Love: Essays on FriendshipWrite a review.
 Bromance: Male Friendship, Love and Sport Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself & Other Essays A Spy in the House of Love (First Edition, New) Truth & Beauty A Friendship Friendship Bracelets Single Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories Family Walking on Highway, Five Children (June 1938 ) by Dorothea Lange. Courtesy the Library of Congress Rawls the redeemerFor john rawls, liberalism was more than a political project: it is the best way to fashion a life that is worthy of happiness. by Alexandre Lefebvre + BIO John Rawls, the preeminent political philosopher of the 20th century whose masterpiece, A Theory of Justice (1971), fundamentally reshaped the field, lived a quiet and – I mean this the best way – boring life. After an eventful and sometimes tragic youth (more on this later), he settled into an academic career and worked at Harvard University for nearly 40 years. There, he developed ideas that transformed our thinking about justice, fairness, democracy and liberalism, and also trained generations of students who are now leading members of the profession. He died aged 81 in 2002, the year I began my graduate studies, so I never had the chance to meet him. Yet every single account I’ve heard from his students and colleagues attests to his genuine kindness. Decent is the word that comes up time and again, in the understated sense of unshowy goodness. Still waters can run deep, however, and from archival research I’ve discovered charming eccentricities. Every year, for instance, his family would put on a Christmas play that worked in his famous concepts as minor characters. My favourite bit of oddness, though, comes from an interview he gave to mark his retirement. In 1991, he sat down with undergraduate students to discuss his life, work, reception and teaching. But in a draft copy of the interview, included in his personal papers at Harvard, he added a weird and wonderful section that does not appear in the published version (and that, it seems, he wrote only for himself). After answering the questions from the students, he noted down a few ‘Questions They Didn’t Ask Me’ and played the role of interviewer and interviewee. Here’s the addendum in full: There were lots of questions they didn’t ask me in [ The Harvard Review of Philosophy ( HRP )] interview. Some of those they could have asked I’ll answer here: HRP (as imagined): You never talk about religion in your classes, although sometimes the discussion borders on it. Why is that? Do you think religion of no importance? Or that it has no role in our life? JR: On the role of religion, put it this way. Let’s ask the question: Does life need to be redeemed? And if so, why; and what can redeem it? I would say yes: life does need to be redeemed. By life I mean the ordinary round of being born, growing up, falling in love, and marrying and having children; seeing that they grow up, go to school, and have children themselves; of supporting ourselves and carrying on day after day; of growing older and having grandchildren and eventually dying. All that and much else needs to be redeemed. HRP : Fine, but what’s this business about being redeemed? It doesn’t say anything to me. JR: Well, what I mean is that what I call the ordinary round of life – growing up, falling in love, having children and the rest – can seem not enough by itself. That ordinary round must be graced by something to be worthwhile. That’s what I mean by redeemed. The question is what is needed to redeem it? This is bizarre for many reasons. I mean, first, who does this? Who goes home after an interview and, just for the fun of it, invents and answers hypothetical questions? But stranger still is the content. Readers of Rawls don’t expect him to speak this way. He is, after all, a political philosopher and the main question associated with his work is the following: how is it possible for an institutional order to be just? Yet, what if, when the chips were down at the end of his career, he spoke more directly and plainly, even if only to himself, to state a more fundamental question at the root of his life and thought: how is it possible for a human life – yours, mine, or any – to be worthwhile? Ordinary life, says Rawls, needs to be redeemed. By what? It depends on what you believe in. A theist will have one response, an atheist or agnostic another. The young Rawls was a believer, and after completing his undergraduate studies had planned to become a minister. But he lost his faith as a soldier in the Second World War. Even so, he never abandoned a conviction that ordinary life needs to be elevated (‘redeemed’ or ‘graced’) by something beyond it. I believe Rawls found that thing in liberalism and the tradition of liberal moral and political thought he devoted his life to. He never stopped trying to work out how a life based on liberal ideals can be not only happy but worthy of happiness. This makes him the perfect guru for our times. T o see why Rawls fits this role, I need to say something about the peculiar moment we live in. As everyone knows, religion is in decline throughout the Western world. To name only the most populous Anglophone liberal democracies, surveys of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand show that 30, 53, 32, 40 and 49 per cent, respectively, of citizens in these countries claim no religion. People who tick the ‘no religion’ box on the census are the fastest-growing population of religious affiliation, or in this case, of non-affiliation. This raises a tricky question. If you, like me, are unchurched and don’t draw your values from a religion, then where do you get them from? From what broad tradition do you acquire your sense of what is good, normal and worthwhile in life, and – if I can put it this way – your general vibe too? When I’ve asked my non-religious friends, colleagues and students this question, they’re almost always stumped. Their impulse is to say one of three things: ‘from my experience’, ‘from friends and family’ or ‘from human nature’. But to this I reply, as politely as possible, that those are not suitable answers. Personal experience, friends and family and human nature are situated and formed within wider social, political and cultural contexts. So I ask again: ‘What society-or-civilisation-sized thing can you point to as the source of your values? I’m talking about the kind of thing that, were you Christian, you’d just say: “Ah, the Bible,” or “Oh, my Church.’’’ In my book Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024), I argue that the unchurched in the Western world should point to liberalism as the source of who they are through and through. Liberalism – with its core values of personal freedom, fairness, reciprocity, tolerance and irony – is that society-or-civilisation-sized thing that may well underlie who we are, not just in our political opinions but in all walks of life, from the family to the workplace, from friendship to enmity, from humour to outrage, and everything in between. How can ordinary people in the modern world remain free and generous, despite new temptations not to be? This argument will not be news for conservative critics who are keenly aware of how hegemonic liberalism has become. Ironically, though, it may surprise liberals themselves, who often fail to recognise how widely and deeply their liberalism runs. Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a ‘social and political philosophy’ based on ‘support for or advocacy of individual rights, civil liberty, and reform tending towards individual freedom, democracy, or social equality’, liberals too quickly adopt this narrow institutionalist definition and assume that liberalism is an exclusively legal and political doctrine. Liberals, in other words, fail to recognise not just what liberalism has become today (a worldview and comprehensive value system) but who they are as well: living and breathing incarnations of it. The founders of liberalism would have been disappointed in us. A newcomer by the standards of intellectual history, it was created in the 19th century by such greats as Benjamin Constant, Germaine de Staël, Alexis de Tocqueville, George Eliot and John Stuart Mill. While there are many differences between them, they all conceive of liberalism first and foremost in ethical terms – a ‘moral adventure’, as Adam Gopnik has called it, for living well in the modern world. As Helena Rosenblatt states in her excellent book , The Lost History of Liberalism (2018): ‘Today we may think that they were naive, deluded, or disingenuous. But to 19th-century liberals, being liberal meant believing in an ethical project.’ What does this mean? Then, as now, the word ‘liberal’ (with its roots in the Latin liber and liberalis ) combines two meanings: freedom ( liberty ) and generosity ( liberality ). When 19th-century thinkers (and statespersons, journalists, novelists, soldiers and more) claimed this mantle for themselves, they wrestled with a very deep question. How, they asked, can ordinary people in the modern world remain free and generous, despite all kinds of new temptations not to be? Capitalism, for example, entices us with shiny consumerism; democracy can lull us into conformity; and nationalism ensnares us in unearned partiality. These are social and political dangers to be sure. But early liberals also saw them as bedevilments apt to make us mean, restless, unhappy and just generally shitty people. Liberalism was the ethical and political doctrine they created to try to bring these new forces under political and psychological control. Which raises an important question: what the hell happened to liberalism? If in the 19th century it was an aspirational doctrine for living well, but in the 20th and 21st century it retreated to a much more staid legal and political project, the question is why and when were its ethical guts stripped out? Historians and philosophers blame different and complementary causes. Rosenblatt points to early 20th-century thinkers who, dissatisfied with New Deal progressivism, invented a retrenched ‘classical liberalism’. In Liberalism Against Itself (2023), Samuel Moyn names the Cold War liberals who repudiated the progressivism and perfectionism of their forebearers. For my part, I focus on a branch of contemporary political philosophy (‘political liberalism’ – founded, ironically, by Rawls’s 1993 work of the same name, after A Theory of Justice ) that eschews questions of the good life to work out a conception of liberalism fit for a pluralist society divided by disagreements between citizens on questions of value and meaning. Whatever the reason for why liberalism’s ethical side vanished, it is high time to reclaim it. Let me be blunt: liberals are awful at defending themselves. First of all, the global conversation about the current crisis of liberalism tends to fixate on the opponents of liberalism, and how horrible populists, nativists and authoritarians are. Rarely are the strengths and virtues of liberalism talked up. Moreover, when liberalism is defended, the reasons given are almost exclusively legal or political. Politicians and journalists insist on the indispensability of such institutions as division of powers, rule of law and individual rights. Certainly, that kind of defence is crucial. But by claiming that liberalism not only can be, in general, a way of life, but much more pointedly, may already be the basis of your own, I am drawing attention to a whole other set of reasons – call it ‘spiritual’ or ‘existential’, no matter how jittery such terms make liberals – for why we should care deeply about the fate of our creed. T here is no better guide to this endeavour than Rawls. To use an old-fashioned word, he is a superb moralist, gifted at detecting the underlying moral commitments of a liberal democratic society and showing how we, as its members, understand and comport ourselves. It is as if he speaks directly to our conscience to say: ‘OK, if you see your society and yourself in a liberal kind of way, here is what you can do to live up to it.’ Then he adds: ‘Oh, I almost forgot, great joys and benefits come from living this way. Let me show you.’ We’ll get to these joys in a moment. Every guru, however, has an origin story and Rawls’s is worth telling. A few years before he died, he wrote a short, unpublished autobiography titled ‘Just Jack’. ‘Jack’ was what friends and family called him, and ‘just’ was a play on the meanings of justice and simply . As I said, in contrast to his tranquil decades as a Harvard professor, his youth was eventful and at times tragic. On two separate occasions as a child, he passed fatal illnesses to his younger brothers (diphtheria to Bobby Rawls in 1928, and then pneumonia to Tommy Rawls in 1929) and developed a stammer from the trauma. In 1944, he served as an infantryman in the Pacific, was nearly killed in battle, and got a Bronze Star for bravery. Yet in telling his life story, Rawls dwells on a minor incident from his early 20s, when he had to go out and get a real job. While an undergraduate at Princeton in 1941, he had wanted to go on a sailing trip with friends and expected his family would pay. To his chagrin, his father had other ideas, telling Jack to work if he wanted a holiday. He did, and the experience was formative: Jobs were hard to find in those days. The depression was beginning to ease by that time, of course, but the best I could do on short notice was a 12-hour job – 6 am to 6 pm, six days a week – in a doughnut factory somewhere in downtown Baltimore, whose location I have conveniently repressed. I was the helper of an older man named Ernie who operated one of the mixing machines. He had been there for 18 years and had three children to support, and it seemed he’d be there forever, breathing flour dust all his life … Ernie was decent and considerate, and never spoke harshly to me. He seemed resigned to the fact that he would always have that sort of job. There was no prospect of advance, really, or much hope of anything better for him. As for me, I decided to look elsewhere. There must be jobs easier than this, I thought, and 12 hours a day breathing flour dust was too much … I came to feel very sorry for Ernie. Often I’ve felt my days at the doughnut factory and Ernie’s decency and stoicism in view of his fate – or so it seemed to me – made a lasting impression. So that was how most people spent their lives, of course not literally, but to all practical purposes: pointless labour for not much pay, and even if well paid it led nowhere. Even business and law struck me as dead ends. While trying not to forget the plight of the Ernies of this world, I had to find my place in life in some other way. Did these things influence me in proposing the difference principle years later? I wouldn’t claim so. But how would I know? Who am I to gainsay Rawls? Still, his thought makes a lot of sense when viewed through the prism of this experience. It might even help us learn how to live liberally in the 21st century. Fairness is the most important concept of Rawls’s philosophy. It is, negatively speaking, the precise quality missing when a person like Ernie must toil endlessly at a job that a college student like Jack can quit after six weeks because he finds it difficult and demeaning. And decades later, when it came time to write A Theory of Justice , Rawls crowned it as the defining ideal of liberal democracy. Society , he states, should be conceived of and run as a fair system of cooperation . Or in the words of one contemporary acolyte, Leif Wenar: ‘Our country is built for everyone.’ H ow Rawls arrives at this notion is significant. Crucially, he doesn’t claim it as his own insight. Nor does he derive it from first moral or philosophical principles. He believes instead that citizens of liberal democracies by and large already see and structure their societies as fair systems of cooperation. They have, after all, grown up in countries where all major public institutions profess to advance the freedom, dignity and equal opportunity of all citizens. In Australia, for example, politicians of all stripes insist on the importance of a ‘fair go’. That’s why the idea of society as a fair system of cooperation is accessible to a wide readership: not merely because Rawls’s readers ‘know’ or ‘understand’ what he’s talking about, but much more powerfully because they already affirm it as expressing something essential about themselves and their society. It is no surprise that some of Rawls’s best interpreters, such as Samuel Freeman, report that reading him for the first time can elicit strong feelings of déjà vu, a recognition of what we already know. Rawls isn’t oblivious to real-world injustices. He knows that no society lives up to this ideal. Nor does he think that citizens of liberal democracies wear rose-coloured (or, worse, ideologically tinted) glasses. Still, he bases his theory on the assumption that his fellow citizens recognise that the key purpose of their main public institutions is to ensure that society is seen as, and remains, a fair system of cooperation. Virtually everyone can be expected to know, on his account, that the purpose of a legal constitution is to establish equal and reciprocal rights, the job of the police is to protect them, and progressive taxation is meant to ensure a level playing field. Rawls is enjoying a renaissance in public philosophy, with several authors applying his conception of fairness to different domains. In Free and Equal (2023), Daniel Chandler investigates education, workplace democracy and universal basic income, while in his recent essay for Aeon, Matthew McManus calls for a revival of liberal socialism on Rawlsian principles. And I’ve tried to bring this notion to bear on psychology and culture to help liberals unlock the best part of themselves. Consider Rawls’s most famous concept: the original position. Perhaps the most influential thought experiment of contemporary philosophy, it goes like this: imagine you are with a group of people who are tasked to select principles of justice to regulate the fundamental institutions of society. The plot twist, however, is you don’t know anything about yourself. You agree to step behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ and pretend that you don’t know your sex, gender, class, race, religion, able-bodiedness or anything that might distinguish you from others. There are great spiritual goods – great joys – that come from living up to liberal principles Which principles would you pick? It’s a no-brainer for Rawls: those that favour fairness when it comes to basic rights, self-respect, and resources and opportunities. Why? Prudence, in part: the pie should be divided as equally as possible lest it be revealed that you’re in a less-advantaged position. But the moral oomph of the original position is to remind citizens of liberal democracies – particularly those of privilege – that the dumb luck of social position and natural abilities shouldn’t bear on issues of justice. A liberal person should leave all that at the door. This may be fine in theory but let’s make it concrete. Suppose this hypothetical society has only two members. Their names are Ernie and Jack, and they’ve been asked to play the game of the original position. Ernie goes first and, frankly, he’s got nothing to lose. He can happily pretend not to know who he is because, under fair principles of justice, he stands to gain a much better deal in life. No fuss, no muss for Ernie. Now it’s Jack’s turn. This involves a different calculation. Why should he – pampered Princeton princeling that he is – ever agree to bracket the positional advantages that have worked out so well for him thus far in life? Disgraced or not, a remark by the comic Louis CK is painfully apt. On whether it is better to be Black or white in the United States, the answer for him is obvious: ‘I’m not saying that white people are better. I’m saying that being white is clearly better. Who could even argue? If it was an option, I would re-up every year: “Oh yeah, I’ll take white again absolutely, I’ve been enjoying that. I’m gonna stick with white, thank you.’’’ For Jack to suspend knowledge of his advantages – his good looks, impeccable WASP credentials, upper-middle-classness and all the rest – in reflecting on which principles of social cooperation to affirm might seem positively irrational. So why do it? What’s in it for Jack? First, it’s the right thing to do. But second, just as importantly, there are great spiritual goods – great joys – that come from living up to liberal principles. By engaging in the original position, Jack embraces impartiality and autonomy as core virtues. This means liberating himself from the narrow confines of self-interest and positional bias. In a world rife with inequality and injustice, impartiality allows Jack to see beyond his own perspective, fostering empathy and understanding for others. Autonomy, on the other hand, empowers him to act in accordance with his values, free from external coercion or undue influence. By embodying impartiality and autonomy, Jack also cultivates resilience in the face of temptation and adversity. In a consumer culture where self-restraint and stalwartness are often tested, adherence to liberal principles instils moral fortitude. And if Jack gets good at navigating such ethical dilemmas, we might even say that he will become graceful. He will fulfil the requirements of justice with pleasure and relative ease. In short, Jack’s decision – and our decision, which can be made at any time – to embrace the original position is not just a thought experiment but a transformative spiritual practice. And now we return to where we began with Rawls: on redemption. Liberalism, it is true, has no metaphysics to speak of. The soul? The Great Beyond? The purpose of it all? ‘Pfffftt,’ goes the liberal. Yet we’ve never given up on the core of religion: to seek meaning in life through something beyond us. Our Beyond is found not on another plane of existence but instead in something worldly just beyond our grasp – an ideal of becoming a free and generous person in a fair and just society. Redemption is not found only in a liberal way of life. Heaven forbid. Yet it’s there too, waiting for liberals to answer its call. Adapted from Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024) by Alexandre Lefebvre, published by Princeton University Press.  Political philosophy Citizens and spinning wheels For Indians to be truly free, Gandhi argued they must take up traditional crafts. Was it a quixotic hope or inspired solution? Benjamin Studebaker  C L R James and America The brilliant Trinidadian thinker is remembered as an admirer of the US but he also warned of its dark political future Harvey Neptune  Anthropology Your body is an archive If human knowledge can disappear so easily, why have so many cultural practices survived without written records? Helena Miton  Seeing plants anew The stunningly complex behaviour of plants has led to a new way of thinking about our world: plant philosophy Stella Sandford  Knowledge is often a matter of discovery. But when the nature of an enquiry itself is at question, it is an act of creation Céline Henne  History of ideas All that we are The philosophy of personalism inspired Martin Luther King’s dream of a better world. We still need its hopeful ideas today Bennett Gilbert |
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
When crushes become crushing - how to know if you're in a 'limerent episode'. 4 minutes. Psychology Essays from Aeon. World-leading psychologists, neuroscientists and science writers explore topics from personality to neurodiversity, consciousness and altered states to mental health, identity and more.
The signals seen in the brains of friends - both in the unconscious and conscious brain - were more similar than those between people who were more distant in the network. They were also able to predict just how close two people were in the network simply by comparing scans. Now that is a concrete finding.
But they miss something as well. On these views, loving friendships allow us to avoid loneliness because the loving friend provides a form of recognition we require as social beings. Without loving friendships, or when we are apart from our friends, we are unable to secure this recognition. So we become lonely.
It's Your Friends Who Break Your Heart (Jennifer Senior, The Atlantic, March 2022) In this essay, Jennifer Senior focuses on how friendships sometimes exist vaguely during midlife. She delves deeply into the intersection of friendship and aging, and how friendships come to an end.
2.1K subscribers in the Psychology_Papers community. A place where to post summaries of low- and medium-quality human nature papers (mostly from…
A Guide to Friendship, Schmoozing, and Social Advancement by Glenn O'Brien. Finding the best others we can is part of the natural-selection mechanism, and it's far safer than rock climbing. The Man Date by Jennifer 8. Lee.
Profound Essays from Aeon Magazine. Over the last year, I have found many good articles at Aeon —a digital magazine of ideas, philosophy, and culture. I had intended to write posts about these many pieces but alas I have not found the time. So instead I will link to some of the thought-provoking pieces they've published that I've read ...
It seems silly to try and quantify friendship and bring language to a type of love and kinship that has existed from the first molecule. But let's try. Humans need other humans —I love that about us. I love our dependency for each other, our deep innate desire to gravitate towards community and groups.
(Download PDF Books) First Love: Essays on Friendship by Lilly Dancyger . Overview : A bold, poignant essay collection that treats women?s friendships as the love stories they truly are, from the critically acclaimed author of Negative Space.Lilly Dancyger always thought of her closest friendships as great loves, complex and profound as any romance.
Tainted love. Love is both a wonderful thing and a cunning evolutionary trick to control us. A dangerous cocktail in the wrong hands. Untitled (Portrait of a Man and a Woman) (1851), daguerreotype, United States. Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago. Anna Machin. is an evolutionary anthropologist, writer and broadcaster whose work has appeared ...
Write an essay on friendship according to your plan. Proofread the text. Finally. So, the concept of friendship is multifaceted, giving the possibility to create both short issues and long analytical papers. The central idea here is to understand the essence of the relationships between people, their various aspects, forms, and manifestations.
First of all love and friendship is relationship, which requires time, effort and many other characteristics, which form mutual relationship. Both, love and friendship assume emotional involvement, care, respect and devotion. Both feelings undergo transformations with the flow of time and go through different stages.
500+ Words Essay on Friendship. Friendship is one of the greatest bonds anyone can ever wish for. Lucky are those who have friends they can trust. Friendship is a devoted relationship between two individuals. They both feel immense care and love for each other. Usually, a friendship is shared by two people who have similar interests and ...
Christopher de Vinck, husband, father, and grandfather, earned his doctoral degree from Columbia University and devoted 40 years to his career in public education. In essays that are warm, evocative, and often amusing, Christopher De Vinck gives us back the eyes of a child, the fresh vision of delight, and a renewed reminder that we are surrounded with awe that we often take for granted.
First Love: Essays on Friendship Rating Required Select Rating 1 star (worst) 2 stars 3 stars (average) 4 stars 5 stars (best) Name Required
Pulsing with hurt in the wake of a friend break-up, we hurl him or her into the 'bad friends' basket. But, sometimes, we have to drop a friend to become ourselves. In Connecting in College (2016), the sociologist Janice McCabe argues that ending friendships in young adulthood is a way of advancing our identities.
It emanates from an origin that precedes frail beings. According to a hymn of creation in the Rig Veda, love is a fundamental presence: 'In the beginning arose Love' - or Kāma in Sanskrit: the love that sparks desire and vitalises consciousness through practices of yogic attention. In mystical Islamic traditions, love is similarly ...
52K Followers, 173 Following, 4,320 Posts - Aeon (@aeonmag) on Instagram: "Aeon is a magazine of ideas and culture. Psyche is a sister site magazine, focused on the human condition. Free to all."
First Love: Essays on Friendship Rating Required Select Rating 1 star (worst) 2 stars 3 stars (average) 4 stars 5 stars (best) Name Required
Here is where it gets interesting. Self-loathing and insecurity (as opposed to self-love) are key to two of the most popular stories of friendship in recent years: the Neapolitan Novels quartet (2012-15) by Elena Ferrante and the TV comedy drama Fleabag (2016-19) by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. As ever, it's the darker sides of friendships that tend ...
1696 title page. Essayes: Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and Allowed (1597) was the first published book by the philosopher, statesman and jurist Francis Bacon.The Essays are written in a wide range of styles, from the plain and unadorned to the epigrammatic. They cover topics drawn from both public and private life, and in each case the essays cover their ...
John Rawls, the preeminent political philosopher of the 20th century whose masterpiece, A Theory of Justice (1971), fundamentally reshaped the field, lived a quiet and - I mean this the best way - boring life. After an eventful and sometimes tragic youth (more on this later), he settled into an academic career and worked at Harvard University for nearly 40 years.