Aristotle’s 2000-year-old advice on friendships
“In poverty as well as in other misfortunes, people suppose that friends are their only refuge. And friendship is a help to the young, in saving them from error, just as it is also to the old, with a view to the care they require and their diminished capacity for action stemming from their weakness; it is a help also to those in their prime in performing noble actions, for ‘two going together’ are better able to think and to act.”—Aristotle.
A few months ago, together with a group of friends, we talked about the value of friendships. Though it escalated into a two-hour argument with lots of differing views, it was a positive discussion that left me with much contemplation.
On one side of the argument, the rationalists argued that all friendships and relationships were transactional, ...