The Inconstancy of Men's Actions and Friends

I ran for Vice President of my class back when I was a sophomore in high school. We all had to make a speech in front of the class and my hands shook and my voice wobbled. Since then I've spoken to thousands of classes and hundreds of groups without that reaction, yet I can never predict when that old stage fright might reappear. It seems to come on when the things under consideration are important yet I managed to get through defending the Shovel Shop purchase and the Dean Mill without a flutter. Last night speaking about the train in front of an audience who, for the most part shared my views, not only did the voice wobble, but the knees shook. The French essayist Michael Montaigne made this distinction long ago-a historian should always remember to distinguish between calling someone brave and saying someone acted bravely on a certain occasion. His point was that calling someone brave meant  that they had that quality constantly and yet as humans we can never predict how we will act from one moment to the next-someone who bravely faced the enemy one day, would turn and run another day.

Well, I've certainly used up my quota of the first person singular for the day so let's talk about an interesting article on friendship in the Globe this morning.  The point here is the difference between the face to face friendships of earlier days and the Facebook friends of today. It's a nice article without a deep historical perspective. Aristotle talked about three kinds of friendship more than 2,000 years ago. He called the kind where you thought only about the best interests of your one best friend "friendship of virtue." This friend is like another self. A lower level of friendship was the friendship of pleasure where two people or many were joined together in a mutual joy over a shared activity. The people you play golf with on a weekly basis for example. The most interesting category is the one most controversial today-friendships of utility. We can imagine Aristotle going to the same taverna everyday for some watered wine or shopping at the same fresh fish booth every day. Aristotle believed these repeated business transactions created a web of relationships that held society together. Friendships of utility last only as long as the business transactions continue-Leo at Stonebridge has served me breakfast every Friday for years-we share a joke or a story, but if he left to get a different job the friendship of utility would end. Yet, if like me, you seldom leave Easton these repeated interactions begin to have more value-if Ken from the hardware store or Neil from the restaurant speak at town meeting you tend to listen to them more because you know them. This is what Aristotle meant by friendships of utility holding society together. The folks you see at the biweekly Farmer's Market-
Adam, Marie, Beth the soap maker-become important to you and you miss them when they are gone.