Words&Dirt

Summary:

William K. Rawlins’s The Compass of Friendship is an excellent follow-up to Friendship Matters. Rawlins utilizes the same dialectical framework from his first book but expands his research on friendship into new territory. The opening chapters lay out Rawlins’s general theories of friendship, and the latter chapters examine specific types of friendships such as cross-sex, cross-race, and political friendships. Driven by Rawlins’s compassionate enthusiasm for this unique mode of human connection, The Compass of Friendship makes an invaluable academic contribution to an area of research that deserves more attention. 

Key Concepts and Notes:

• After coming across my review of Friendship Matters earlier this year, Professor Rawlins reached out and offered to send me a copy of The Compass of Friendship. He was gracious and kind in exactly the way one would expect from reading his work.
• The Compass of Friendship is written in the same dense style as Friendship Matters, so it’s not exactly a breezy read. I was happy to find myself at home amidst references to writers who influenced me greatly in my undergraduate years––including John Dewey, Alasdair MacIntyre, Jerome Bruner, Paul Ricoeur, and Martin Buber––along with a much longer list of academics I’d never heard of before. This book is very much a product of the ivory tower, but it’s also fairly short and feels more approachable compared to its predecessor.
• In a world increasingly dominated by data and statistics, Rawlins’s qualitative approach feels like a breath of fresh air. Readers may rightly find themselves wondering about the generalizability of Rawlins’s claims, but that shouldn’t invalidate his method of using narratives, dialogues, and anecdotes to flesh out his dialectical models. I believe that anyone who thinks seriously about friendship will recognize the wisdom in Rawlins’s theories, even if they also find them lacking in some respects. This is beyond the scope of Rawlins’s research, but I’d love to see some cultural psychology or anthropology that compared friendship practices across the world. It would be fascinating to see if Rawlins’s theories hold up.
• The book’s titular metaphor is quite strong but underutilized. I love the notion of friendship as a compass that helps guide us through the uncertain landscapes of life, so I couldn’t figure out why Rawlins didn’t develop this idea more thoroughly. The compass is only mentioned a handful of times, mostly in the first and final chapters. I think Rawlins only scratched the surface of this metaphor’s rich potential.
• The chapters on cross-sex, cross-race, and political friendships are all very strong. Rawlins treats these subjects with the sensitivity and nuance that they deserve. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the ethics and politics of friendship, which examines both the limitations and potentials of friendship as a facilitator of social progress.
• In my view, the most valuable concept in this book is the “Dialectic of Individuation and Participation.” This dynamic comes up repeatedly and drives many of Rawlins’s central arguments. Simply put, there is always a tension between our desire to be distinct individuals and our need to participate in and identify with various groups. Rawlins posits that individuation and participation can manifest in ways that are “edifying” (generally positive) or “dispiriting” (generally negative), and does a good job of demonstrating the difference. He also presents “Primary Misperceptions” for both individuation and participation: the “Primary Misperception of Individuation” occurs when we focus too much on individuality while downplaying significant similarities between people, and the “Primary Misperception of Participation” occurs when we overemphasize similarities and/or group identities at the expense of individuality. These intersubjective failure modes were relevant in 2009 when this book was first published, but are arguably much more relevant today. In a tribalized America riven by political polarization, stark socioeconomic inequality, (social) media bubbles, and growing animosity between urban and rural populations, I don’t think it’s hyperbole to suggest that most of us are falling prey to one or both of these “Primary Misperceptions” on a regular basis. Rawlins’s research illuminates this problem in a unique fashion that will help readers seek a healthy and mindful balance between individuation and participation in our activities and relationships.
• As someone who has spent a lot of time practicing, thinking, reading, and writing about friendship, I thought I had a fairly comprehensive grasp of its scope and character. However, I’m happy to say that The Compass of Friendship revealed a major lacuna in my conceptualization of friendship, which involves both the limitations and potential pitfalls of friendly relations. While Rawlins acknowledges the special role that volition plays in the formation and maintenance of friendship, he also makes a strong case that “It is not free choice. Instead, it is constrained by the functional proximity of other persons, the likelihood that we will encounter and interact with them on a consistent basis in our daily lives” (139). This means we must be aware and wary of the structural forces that influence who, how, and under what specific conditions people can become and stay friends. Sometimes friendships can successfully bridge gaps between gender, sexual orientation, race, and/or socioeconomic status. When they do, this is generally a good thing, but it’s not generally easy or probable. Friendships or friend-groups that become too insular can reinforce and perpetuate unjust or oppressive systems. There is the danger of friendships acting as “privatized retreats” that render us “too complacent for political participation. As long as the needs of our specific friends are met, we feel no need to enhance the lives of unknown others” (198). These ideas helped me analyze and revise how I think about friendship in my personal life and more generally.

Favorite Quotes:

We live in times of harried personal lives, diminishing existential connection, and increasing alienation. In these disheartening circumstances, I believe that communicating as friends offers hopeful alternatives. In this spirit, I examine the compass of friendship in this book. I intended to meanings of the word “compass.” First, I mean the extent to which we can realistically apply friendship’s ethical ideals across private and public contexts. What is the practical reach of friendship? What is offered by extending the hand of friendship across the spaces between self and other? How far can we project the humane spirit of friendship in proposing commonalities, recognizing and spanning significant differences? Second, I mean the capacities of friendship for offering moral guidance in our personal and public lives. How can friendship’s ethical practices contribute to making choices as individuals and political communities that constructively shape the course of human events? (10-1)

How can I be what I am without fear of or exaggerating my differences from you and your differences from me? How can I allow you to be who you are without fear of or compelling your being too different from me? The spirit of friendship understands these questions as shared invitations to edifying individuation. Living in friendship involves acknowledging our own time, place, and possibilities while also respecting the comparable potentials of our friend’s unique existence. Acknowledging our respective differences does not require hierarchically contrasting them…How can I be with you without fear of or exaggerating my similarities with you and losing my identity? How can I allow you to be with me without fear of or compelling the loss of your identity? The spirit of friendship comprehends these questions at the same time as shared invitations to edifying participation. Living in friendship celebrates our significant similarities that connect us and enliven our differences. (46)

Negotiated within a host of stories already in progress, friendships are ongoing narrative achievements reflexively shaping our identities, convictions, participation, and possibilities. When we choose our friends, we not only are selecting co-actors in the stories of our lives, we are selecting co-authors and co-tellers. Poignantly over the course of shared lives, we also come to serve as trusted curators of the stories of our friends’ lives, even as they preserve our co-told and witnessed narratives. (47)

While personal choice is involved in forming friendships, it is not free choice. Instead, it is constrained by the functional proximity of other persons, the likelihood that we will encounter and interact with them on a consistent basis in our daily lives. (139)

Authentic participation in friendship involves significant ethical practices. Each friendship practice shapes and occurs in the context of the others in the composing an ethics of friendship. First, friendship is negotiated voluntarily within limits between friends and not imposed from outside. This quasi-voluntarism constitutes an important quality composing the moral fiber of friendship (M. Friedman, 1992). Second, friends care about each other’s well-being for the person’s own sake. In doing so, friends achieve expanded, other-regarding, relational selves. Third, friends respect each other as equals in relation to their common pursuits. Fourth, mutual respect and recognition of their identities as continuous achievements find friends engaging in ongoing learning about each other as an ethical requirement of their relationship. Fifth, performing the ethical practices of friendship engenders trust between friends. Sixth, friends further ensure trust communicatively through practicing respectful honesty in their dealings with each other. Seventh, in light of these mutually achieved ethical qualities, friendship is a conscientiously interested relationship. We give special attention to our friends’ needs and desires. (183-4)

Concerns for our self become mediated by our concern for the well-being of our friend(s)….The concern for specific individuals for their own sake becomes a generalized good will extended to the members of our political community. The mutual well-wishing of dyadic friends transmutes into a concern for the common good implicating all participants in our polity. (186)

Learning about others’ worlds in the spirit of equal respect modeled by our personal friendships, we can begin to identify with their specific needs for justice. As a result, we can experience an ethical summons to extend the compass of our concern for political friends to include formerly excluded others. Political friendship builds on the interested, other-regarding stance of all friendships to act on behalf of those whom we have come to understand as deserving just treatment. Learning about others, identifying with their circumstances, and choosing to ensure spaces for voices to be heard in a spirit of equal respect and justice can create ethical calls to political action. (193)

Narrative and dialogue interweave in the discourses of friendship, vividly revealing the worldviews of friends. Both discursive activities welcome the participation of others and emphasize the creative, ethical, and mutually affirming significance of engaged listening. Moments of dialogue and storytelling among friends encourage expressing ourselves and hearing our voices. These activities may arise as ends-in-themselves for the enjoyment of time passed in each other’s presence. At the same time dialogues and narratives exchanged among friends constitute moral visions. They dramatize and question our conceptions of well-lived lives. As friends we envision possibilities and co-construct choices through narrating stories and pursuing dialogues together. (205)

There are limits to the ethical potentials of political friendships in both private and public settings. Personal friendships can constitute exclusive retreats from the broader demand of politics. We may only befriend persons who resemble us and share our views. We may enjoy our private comforts too much to become involved with disturbing social issues affecting those outside our small circle. In the political sphere excessive partiality toward our like-minded political friends make cloud and narrow our judgment. We may give our friends unfair advantages selfishly serving our own special interests. The unity of political friendship based on restricted identifications with similar friends too easily can foster insularity and sanctioned prejudices. (209-10)

Where do we stand with the compass of friendship? We stand with other human beings in all our potentials, fallibilities, vulnerabilities, and multiplicities. We see friendship celebrated throughout history and around the globe at various times and in different ways because it tracks humankind’s capacities for benevolence and cooperation (Brain, 1976).We see the good-hearted, responsive practices of friendship invoked in a variety of settings because it can bring out the best in people. We say friendship makes life worth living because of the joy, wisdom, and support our beloved personal friends bestow us. Yet we and our friends are not perfect and neither is friendship. As with our trusted friends, we often give friendship itself the benefit of the doubt as a human(e) ideal. In reality the compass of friendship offers contingent scope and guidance. Its world-enhancing qualities must be accomplished in every instance by human beings in conditional, concrete circumstances. (213)

Rating: 8/10