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Friendship

Requirements

• defining your ethos

Evolution of Relationship

Not Identified

When one of the parties cannot identify another.

Stranger

When all parties do identify each other, but one does not know the ethos of another.

Acquintance

When all parties know the ethos of each other.

Debate Partner

When each party is welcoming being judged according to their own ethos.

Friendship

When each party is allowing others to sustainably judge the party conform to the other’s ethos

Definitions

• the act of doing virtuous evaluation and communication of the results to somebody else
• the act of creating the best conditions for receiving such evaluation
  • making your main output known in detail
  • evaluating virtuous criticism with Temperance
• the act of improving yourself concerning Virtues as a result of virtuous criticism (from without as well as from within)
• the act of discovery and maintenance of a vituous (transactional) cycle between the involved parties
• attributes
  • clarity: a friendship has to be declared at start and finish. If it is not conscious, it is not friendship

Types

• self-friendship: you are your own friend while you observe, evaluate, and act to improve yourself concerning Virtues. If done often: it is the most powerful friendship.
• active friendship: offering to act as a friend. A provable volunteer makes such an offering to the whole world every time an output is published
• passive friendship: acting as a friend when the other party is in an obvious need
• “maybe friendship”: it is a friendship that exists only in the imagination of one or both parties. It may become friendship if tested. Its existence is not beneficial to the concept of true friendship.

Ideal Friendship

• is not personal: is mediated by Virtues
• is unforgiving to transgressions of Virtues
• is not dependent on time or space
• is a verb, not a noun
• is known to exist (or not) for each relationship
• is not dependent on reciprocation
• is dependent on output
• exists towards institutions too
• cannot be created or sustained by those who are unable to have ideal friendships with institutions or concepts that are defined without (not an inner/subjective definition)
• The institution above does not have to be common between friends, but each (of the 2) has to be known mutually

Evolution of Friendship

0: Common Characteristics

Some characteristics common to all stages of friendship between 2 parties (Alice and Bob):

• friendship has to be stated (known by both parties)
• it has to be mutual: if it is not mutual, it may be called admiration or “maybe friendship”
• it is more virtuous if it is made public (not a secret between parties)
• friendship is offered and withdrawn voluntarily
• the relationship of friendship is not a direct or personal relationship: it is with the virtues and having your friend as an intermediary
• the attachments that are developed are attachments to the virtues to the detriment of attachments to the person
• the friendship has to be sustainable. To cultivate at least one cycle of transactions in such a way that imbalances are resolved
• the most important part of the person of the friend is the ethos and it is the fundament for any friendship
• the ethos includes:
  • the personal God
  • the hierarchy of virtues/values
  • political reasoning and preferences
  • other components defined at the ethos repo

0.1 Measurement

A friendship is measured only by distant members of the public (not known by any of the friend in that friendship). Ideally, by other friends (of other friendships).

The qualities measured are the virtues that are produced by the relationship/collaboration (not by the individual friends) for the benetit of all others (the public).

Therefore, an ideal friendship has to be:

• public
• with public (visible) output
• for public’s benefit
• measurable

1: Superficial

In this type of friendship, the 2 friends Alice and Bob allow each other the freedom to judge each other’s actions according to the ethos of each: Alice is welcomed (even invited) by Bob to judge him according to Bob’s own ethos.

2: Moderate

Alice and Bob judge each other’s actions according to both ethoses: Alice is welcome to judge Bob according to his own ethos (same as for the previous stage) as well as according to her ethos. Another ethos is created: the ethos of the relationship. Judging according to the ethos of the relationship is always preferred.

3: Deep

By the time the friendship becomes deep the friends will have changed each other’s ethos so much that it will become one and their individual ethos will disappear into the ethos of the relationship.