I'm guessing you were not born into a conservative household or state, but maybe I'm wrong. Most of the people I've known in my life are now Trumpers. Perhaps this doesn't directly contradict what you've said, but I think the category of people you are thinking of (Trump conservatives) when you say people who cannot recognize you as an equal, oversimplifies that group. Even the racist Trumpers I've known were friends with black people and genuinely liked them, because though they think ideologically in groups about brown people or women or what have you, in their day to day, they are still intelligent individuals who recognize the humanity in people they meet--they just mentally label them as exceptions, or don't even consciously experience the contradiction at all. Someone who thinks all women should have kids may not think that is true about you at all, because people aren't logical. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that all these attempts at clear analysis of this kind of thing strike me as completely inapplicable to my experiences growing up with, fighting, hating, and loving my political opposites, and seem very much a product of academics who spend no significant time around Trumpers, so think of them in simplified (perhaps condescending) terms. I'm not saying "not all Trumpers". I'm just saying, people are people, and even the Trumpers know that, even if they pretend they don't.
you're right that often people are nominally committed to one thing in theory yet don't act that way in practice (a form of illogic goes both ways--nominal sexists sometimes treat women as equals in reality, and nominal feminists sometimes treat them as inferiors in reality). but i do think i would still have trouble being friends with someone who professed to think i wasn't an equal, even if s/he acted like I was an equal in practice....
I think the thing is that you can be “friendly” to people who differ in important ways mentioned here— meaning you can be civil, even enjoy their company in the right circumstances— but serious friendship is like a contract, and it isn’t wrong to have dealbreakers. The particular one you’re demanding isn’t at all unreasonable. Your friendship is something people earn, and while I don’t believe all conservatives/all Trump voters are awful in the ways many assume, a lack of respect for women really should disqualify you for serious friendship with women. It would be a disqualifier for me, at least in part because I assume I’d find this person tedious and dull. Prejudices like that are usually not consistent with the kind of curiosity about the world that I value in the people I spend precious time with. Theoretically an egregiously prejudiced person could be a fascinating and stimulating thinker, but in practice I assume this would be atypical.
What is friendship? Simone Weil theorized that friendship is one of the intrinsic forms of the love of God in the world. In my view, if someone's priors are predicated upon gender essentialism, they are 'relating' not to others, rather but blinded by their own ideas. Such interaction requires paying attention with generosity and curiosity. This is projection and commodification. I assert we are not obligated to subject ourselves to demeaning situations and dehumanizing relations. Without apology, self-respect necessitates drawing 'lines in the sand' as you put it.
As an aside: why the need for women to explain or defend their life path and work? Such as feeling the need to justify the choice to write over biological fertility? Generativity and creativity have myriad expressions. This weird conversation is yet another sign of our misogynistic times wherein women's life choices and bodies are considered chattel.
Exploring these questions from a different perspective, this essay by Gabriella Fiori covers some of her experiences translating, teaching and writing. Quite a testament to the riches of such work, and especially since much of this centers upon Simone Weil. Fiori mentions her translation of L'Enracinement, plus includes Weil's concept of friendship within the context of deep scholarship over decades. All of which may have additional resonance for you, Becca.
As others have commented, a fact-based and consensual agreement on reality is necessary. Since this is not what we are working with here, all of our earnest tolerance will not mitigate the polarization. Line in the sand: if we can't show up and speak up honestly, then these relationships must be recalibrated. Not eliminated but realistically seen for what they are. Disagreement is not the problem; the Frankfurt School theorizes that discourse that is ethical will include conflict. But we are in troubled times where cancellation can be quick if someone is offended (real or imagined) and alternative facts are the name of the game. Having said that, I am altering some interactions to be more superficial (ugh) and restricting some relationships altogether because I refuse to be silent to protect others' comfort based upon delusion and misinformation.
Off on a tangent. The author of the essay I'd linked above has written a book examining these questions. Recommending Gabriella Fiori's 'Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography.'
This is interesting. My first reaction is: I can't be friends with a person who is incapable of recognizing my humanity, no. But how common is true incapability? How common is a fixed relation of non-recognition, that is?
Also: I keep thinking about this, from Terry Eagleton, in LRB, a few months ago:
"When the fulfilment of one individual is the ground or condition of the fulfilment of another, and vice versa, we call this love. Marxism is about political love. I mean love, of course, in its real sense – agape, caritas – not the sexual, erotic, romantic varieties by which late capitalist society is so mesmerised. We’re speaking of the kind of love that can be deeply disagreeable and isn’t necessarily to do with feeling, that is a social practice rather than a sentiment, and which is in danger of getting you killed." (25 April 24)
I think Eagleton's point about eros probably applies, to a lesser extent, to philia. I realize I'm sidestepping your question a little. But I guess as I search for a way forward, I've found myself wondering whether my own limited vocabulary for social bonds has made it harder for me to imagine a future.
i love this quote--reading this piece now! this is a good question (whether someone's incapacity and/or refusal to see you as a person is fixed) and i'm deeply unsure of the answer. or: i'm inclined to think that no one is doomed--that everyone is capable of seeing everyone else as a person--but i'm not sure how we ought to respond to this fact, especially when we find ourselves face to face with someone who doesn't regard us as a human yet. how many chances does this oblige us to give them?
Becca's post made me think: do we chose who we love, either erotically (which I wouldn't deprecate as much as Eagleton does) or in terms of caritas, if we are Christians or secularized Christians/Jews in the style of like Levinas, open to the other, feeling at least metaphorically commanded to love our neighbor? On this level, I at least think that the answer's obviously "no." But you are right that philia is different.
I sort of think the post poses this question at a lower level of abstraction than Becca's evocation of Hegel implies. Friendship of the kind described by like Aristotle or Montaigne is maybe impossible between her and people who think women mostly tend to be happier if they have children and/or go into professions like teaching or nursing. But I don't think there are a lot of people that she feels she'd gain from known or loving, so that she's giving something up in her development as an artist by drawing her line in the sand. It is sort of an aristocratic gesture, but philia as classically conceived is exclusive, and thus somewhat suspect to Christians and Marxists (and Christian Marxists like comrade Terry).
"I don’t think engagement amounts to endorsement in the least."
This is a complete and adequate answer to cancel culture. It would be nice if someone would sky-write it over the main quad of every college campus once a week.
Possibly off-topic, and/or obvious, but I can't be friends with someone who does not share in some minimal consensus as to empirical reality. Especially if the potential friend refuses to offer competent evidence to support their counterfactual assertions. Epistemic humility is essential, of course, but has its limits.
Your question made me think about a passage in Norman Rush’s Mortal that I was reading yesterday — an author that I discovered thanks to one of your recommendation posts! It’s a passage about the phrase ‘be there for you’ (p. 320 of my vintage international edition). Basically the passage laments the emptiness of friendships based on ‘being there’ for another, which gave me the rough idea that you can’t be friends with someone who cannot go beyond being there for you, whose politics/ideology doesn’t let them _do_ anything beyond pleasantries. Now, if both parties are, say, utilitarian, just being there for one another is not an issue because both aim to maximise individual welfare and neither can wish for something more from others. However, if one’s politics is bases on reciprocity and collective welfare then a friendship with a utilitarian is, by definition, unbalanced. What I’m trying to convey is that mutuality is either excluded or condemned in some ideologies, which makes it near impossible to truly ‘recognise’ others. So for that, I can’t be friends with a Le Pen supporter (I’m in France), because that person’s politics means that the good of the community cannot matter for them— or we’d have different conceptions of ‘the good’. It’s possible for that person to recognise me as an exception and, for them, genuinely, but in such case they’re either a hypocrite or inconsistent in their position, both making me not want to be friends with them anyway!
fully agreed. an additional aspect of this (one that is often totally disregarded by online discourse) is that “proximity to evil” matters. i could potentially be acquaintances with a guy who merely *has* odious right-wing opinions, provided he at least satisfies the requirements you laid out here - if he had all those same opinions and worked as a right-wing political operative, i very much could not be.
we would probably do well to distinguish “civilians” and “combatants” in this regard - i hold the “good liberal” unionbusting in hr in much lower regard than the idle reactionary at the sports bar, even if i have more in common ideologically in the former. having bad opinions is, within reason, fine, or at least tolerable - actively and concertedly working to realize those opinions in the real world is not
Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks comes comes to mind. It describes the opposite response, the tendency of people to internalize their supposed inferiority.
I'm curious about your definition of friendship. Obviously, it's something more than "a friend and I were chatting the other day" where friend could mean the person helping you check out at the grocery store, or a coworker that's isn't bad but you don't want to see them outside of work. I wish English had more ways to describe interpersonal relationships (what's the difference between a friend you met in the wild and a friend you met at work? To say that someone is my coworker flattens away my enjoying their company outside of work...but to say they're a friend erases the context of why we see one another daily...saying "my coworker that's also my friend" is too bulky!). There's got to be some way to capture the difference between the casual use of the word friend and someone who you actively participate in friendship with.
My committee chair, whom I respected deeply, is very right-leaning. When we weren't talking about the state of my thesis, we would talk about how the structure of academia is failing students and how frustrating it is to try to empower and advocate for students at a granular level and at a system level and be designing and executing a course (if not multiple) all at the same time. We both wanted students to be given opportunities to succeed. We both acknowledged that there are too many barriers (how many truly phenomenal engineers is the world missing out on because a kid that needs a different type of support is left to fend for themselves in college, or high school, or middle school?). We started to diverge when it came to the mechanics of the solution--how exactly were we going to set students up for success? How could we set our communities up for success? And those divergences were a direct result of us living vastly different lives prior to meeting one another. I wouldn't want to live his life and he wouldn't want to live mine, even if we came to similar conclusions.
It never occurred to me that he, as my mentor, thought less of me because of my gender or race or age. Or worse, that he thought I stood out from the groups I identify with/belong to, that someone I was not like other girls/Black people/millennials. The topics also never came up.
But, he was a mentor. I valued his academic views. If he had made a comment about my settling down and giving up my dream job to be married and have kids, would that have cheapened his praise or his talking about supporting students? My guess is yes. Even rolling the idea around in my head sours my mood.
How does that souring, in the face of such surety, translate to other relationships, those you don't have to participate in against your will? If I was given a choice to only keep close relations with people who recognize me fully, would I? Probably. That'd be really comfortable. But I don't imagine I'd give up all forms of relationships with people who don't recognize me. A part of me says that to give up all uncomfortable relations is to let my own ability to recognize others atrophy.
Yeah, I don’t think we should never have relationships that fall short of full recognition. I just think friendship is probably not possible in that context, even if something slightly less or other than friendship is. (It sounds like you were friends with your mentor and like recognition was not a problem there!)
I wonder about the recognition slider on a friendship-proximity spectrum. If the more I feel recognized by another person, the more willing I become to label them as friend or close friend or best friend. I feel like it also has to be coupled with appropriate sincerity.
There’s plenty of people that are capable of (and choose to) recognize me that I would never want to get coffee or dinner with. Sometimes it feels like there’s no sincerity behind “believe women!” or “black lives matter”. The whole “are you more progressive leaning because you want to dunk on conservatives or because you can actually experience compassion for your fellow man?” and “are you more concerned with doing good or with other people thinking you’re good?”
Does recognition imply sincerity?! Like…someone who is all talk doesn’t really recognize me rather than sincerity being its own element. Am I allowed to let recognition be an element all by itself and not try and define something as ineffable as friendship or what makes a friendship feasible or infeasible.
I tried. I’m pro Palestine and he claimed to be neutral, but he left me 3 times over my posts. But the worst was now the last time when he basically blamed me for what was happening in Amsterdam last week, and he said he hated me. He knew when he started pursuing me, yet he chose to continue with the relationship and break my heart.
I think it’s possible, but like you said you need to communicate properly with the other person. And you both need to be on the same level.
You are right. Such a person cannot be your friend. I also think that such a person is at least a political enemy if not a personal one. We are not honor bound to debate every person who debases us directly, but we do have to — as you just have — publicly condemn their assertions of our and others’ inhumanity.
I think your line in the sand— that a person who doesn’t not recognize your personhood will not be invited into your private space— is a clear and good one. I think, though, where it gets murkier is what to do with all those “intellectually evil” interactions that abound in our peripheral spaces— at the office, online, or at Thanksgiving with extended family. When is it necessary to maintain civility, or even helpful to engage in dialogue? Versus when is it appropriate (or even feasible) to have no contact? I’m not talking about our deepest friendships here, moreso the cordial relationships of convenience which make up the fabric of everyday life. I DO NOT KNOW the answer but one person I will be looking to is Esther Perel. I expect she will be facilitating a lot of interesting discussions around how to navigate politics within relationship
Not a response to the question in hand but curious if you think there are “ideas” that are simply not worth engaging with, or, to what extent is an idea too far-fetched/stupid/outrageously wrong or facile to give serious thought? Mostly I’m thinking of mis/disinformation, a recent example of which is the, god-bless, some populations in some community eat pets…
This is a good question and I certainly think there are. There are probably even ideas I feel aren’t stupid but I feel I’ve engaged with so much in the past but I’m now over them, or my mind is now basically settled. And of course there are also ideas I do find too dumb to bother with. For reasons of diplomacy, I will not say which ones here!
I'm guessing you were not born into a conservative household or state, but maybe I'm wrong. Most of the people I've known in my life are now Trumpers. Perhaps this doesn't directly contradict what you've said, but I think the category of people you are thinking of (Trump conservatives) when you say people who cannot recognize you as an equal, oversimplifies that group. Even the racist Trumpers I've known were friends with black people and genuinely liked them, because though they think ideologically in groups about brown people or women or what have you, in their day to day, they are still intelligent individuals who recognize the humanity in people they meet--they just mentally label them as exceptions, or don't even consciously experience the contradiction at all. Someone who thinks all women should have kids may not think that is true about you at all, because people aren't logical. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that all these attempts at clear analysis of this kind of thing strike me as completely inapplicable to my experiences growing up with, fighting, hating, and loving my political opposites, and seem very much a product of academics who spend no significant time around Trumpers, so think of them in simplified (perhaps condescending) terms. I'm not saying "not all Trumpers". I'm just saying, people are people, and even the Trumpers know that, even if they pretend they don't.
you're right that often people are nominally committed to one thing in theory yet don't act that way in practice (a form of illogic goes both ways--nominal sexists sometimes treat women as equals in reality, and nominal feminists sometimes treat them as inferiors in reality). but i do think i would still have trouble being friends with someone who professed to think i wasn't an equal, even if s/he acted like I was an equal in practice....
I think the thing is that you can be “friendly” to people who differ in important ways mentioned here— meaning you can be civil, even enjoy their company in the right circumstances— but serious friendship is like a contract, and it isn’t wrong to have dealbreakers. The particular one you’re demanding isn’t at all unreasonable. Your friendship is something people earn, and while I don’t believe all conservatives/all Trump voters are awful in the ways many assume, a lack of respect for women really should disqualify you for serious friendship with women. It would be a disqualifier for me, at least in part because I assume I’d find this person tedious and dull. Prejudices like that are usually not consistent with the kind of curiosity about the world that I value in the people I spend precious time with. Theoretically an egregiously prejudiced person could be a fascinating and stimulating thinker, but in practice I assume this would be atypical.
agreed!
What is friendship? Simone Weil theorized that friendship is one of the intrinsic forms of the love of God in the world. In my view, if someone's priors are predicated upon gender essentialism, they are 'relating' not to others, rather but blinded by their own ideas. Such interaction requires paying attention with generosity and curiosity. This is projection and commodification. I assert we are not obligated to subject ourselves to demeaning situations and dehumanizing relations. Without apology, self-respect necessitates drawing 'lines in the sand' as you put it.
As an aside: why the need for women to explain or defend their life path and work? Such as feeling the need to justify the choice to write over biological fertility? Generativity and creativity have myriad expressions. This weird conversation is yet another sign of our misogynistic times wherein women's life choices and bodies are considered chattel.
Exploring these questions from a different perspective, this essay by Gabriella Fiori covers some of her experiences translating, teaching and writing. Quite a testament to the riches of such work, and especially since much of this centers upon Simone Weil. Fiori mentions her translation of L'Enracinement, plus includes Weil's concept of friendship within the context of deep scholarship over decades. All of which may have additional resonance for you, Becca.
https://attentionsw.org/the-story-of-a-friendship/
Thank you! What a thoughtful response!
As others have commented, a fact-based and consensual agreement on reality is necessary. Since this is not what we are working with here, all of our earnest tolerance will not mitigate the polarization. Line in the sand: if we can't show up and speak up honestly, then these relationships must be recalibrated. Not eliminated but realistically seen for what they are. Disagreement is not the problem; the Frankfurt School theorizes that discourse that is ethical will include conflict. But we are in troubled times where cancellation can be quick if someone is offended (real or imagined) and alternative facts are the name of the game. Having said that, I am altering some interactions to be more superficial (ugh) and restricting some relationships altogether because I refuse to be silent to protect others' comfort based upon delusion and misinformation.
Off on a tangent. The author of the essay I'd linked above has written a book examining these questions. Recommending Gabriella Fiori's 'Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography.'
This is interesting. My first reaction is: I can't be friends with a person who is incapable of recognizing my humanity, no. But how common is true incapability? How common is a fixed relation of non-recognition, that is?
Also: I keep thinking about this, from Terry Eagleton, in LRB, a few months ago:
"When the fulfilment of one individual is the ground or condition of the fulfilment of another, and vice versa, we call this love. Marxism is about political love. I mean love, of course, in its real sense – agape, caritas – not the sexual, erotic, romantic varieties by which late capitalist society is so mesmerised. We’re speaking of the kind of love that can be deeply disagreeable and isn’t necessarily to do with feeling, that is a social practice rather than a sentiment, and which is in danger of getting you killed." (25 April 24)
I think Eagleton's point about eros probably applies, to a lesser extent, to philia. I realize I'm sidestepping your question a little. But I guess as I search for a way forward, I've found myself wondering whether my own limited vocabulary for social bonds has made it harder for me to imagine a future.
i love this quote--reading this piece now! this is a good question (whether someone's incapacity and/or refusal to see you as a person is fixed) and i'm deeply unsure of the answer. or: i'm inclined to think that no one is doomed--that everyone is capable of seeing everyone else as a person--but i'm not sure how we ought to respond to this fact, especially when we find ourselves face to face with someone who doesn't regard us as a human yet. how many chances does this oblige us to give them?
That is a great quote.
Becca's post made me think: do we chose who we love, either erotically (which I wouldn't deprecate as much as Eagleton does) or in terms of caritas, if we are Christians or secularized Christians/Jews in the style of like Levinas, open to the other, feeling at least metaphorically commanded to love our neighbor? On this level, I at least think that the answer's obviously "no." But you are right that philia is different.
I sort of think the post poses this question at a lower level of abstraction than Becca's evocation of Hegel implies. Friendship of the kind described by like Aristotle or Montaigne is maybe impossible between her and people who think women mostly tend to be happier if they have children and/or go into professions like teaching or nursing. But I don't think there are a lot of people that she feels she'd gain from known or loving, so that she's giving something up in her development as an artist by drawing her line in the sand. It is sort of an aristocratic gesture, but philia as classically conceived is exclusive, and thus somewhat suspect to Christians and Marxists (and Christian Marxists like comrade Terry).
"I don’t think engagement amounts to endorsement in the least."
This is a complete and adequate answer to cancel culture. It would be nice if someone would sky-write it over the main quad of every college campus once a week.
Possibly off-topic, and/or obvious, but I can't be friends with someone who does not share in some minimal consensus as to empirical reality. Especially if the potential friend refuses to offer competent evidence to support their counterfactual assertions. Epistemic humility is essential, of course, but has its limits.
Your question made me think about a passage in Norman Rush’s Mortal that I was reading yesterday — an author that I discovered thanks to one of your recommendation posts! It’s a passage about the phrase ‘be there for you’ (p. 320 of my vintage international edition). Basically the passage laments the emptiness of friendships based on ‘being there’ for another, which gave me the rough idea that you can’t be friends with someone who cannot go beyond being there for you, whose politics/ideology doesn’t let them _do_ anything beyond pleasantries. Now, if both parties are, say, utilitarian, just being there for one another is not an issue because both aim to maximise individual welfare and neither can wish for something more from others. However, if one’s politics is bases on reciprocity and collective welfare then a friendship with a utilitarian is, by definition, unbalanced. What I’m trying to convey is that mutuality is either excluded or condemned in some ideologies, which makes it near impossible to truly ‘recognise’ others. So for that, I can’t be friends with a Le Pen supporter (I’m in France), because that person’s politics means that the good of the community cannot matter for them— or we’d have different conceptions of ‘the good’. It’s possible for that person to recognise me as an exception and, for them, genuinely, but in such case they’re either a hypocrite or inconsistent in their position, both making me not want to be friends with them anyway!
This is very well said! That’s exactly it—certain ideologies or political commitments are inimical to the very notion of reciprocal recognition
fully agreed. an additional aspect of this (one that is often totally disregarded by online discourse) is that “proximity to evil” matters. i could potentially be acquaintances with a guy who merely *has* odious right-wing opinions, provided he at least satisfies the requirements you laid out here - if he had all those same opinions and worked as a right-wing political operative, i very much could not be.
we would probably do well to distinguish “civilians” and “combatants” in this regard - i hold the “good liberal” unionbusting in hr in much lower regard than the idle reactionary at the sports bar, even if i have more in common ideologically in the former. having bad opinions is, within reason, fine, or at least tolerable - actively and concertedly working to realize those opinions in the real world is not
Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks comes comes to mind. It describes the opposite response, the tendency of people to internalize their supposed inferiority.
I guess my coping mechanism in this case is to fall back on a shred of scripture... "they know not what they do...". Pathetic, I know....
I'm curious about your definition of friendship. Obviously, it's something more than "a friend and I were chatting the other day" where friend could mean the person helping you check out at the grocery store, or a coworker that's isn't bad but you don't want to see them outside of work. I wish English had more ways to describe interpersonal relationships (what's the difference between a friend you met in the wild and a friend you met at work? To say that someone is my coworker flattens away my enjoying their company outside of work...but to say they're a friend erases the context of why we see one another daily...saying "my coworker that's also my friend" is too bulky!). There's got to be some way to capture the difference between the casual use of the word friend and someone who you actively participate in friendship with.
My committee chair, whom I respected deeply, is very right-leaning. When we weren't talking about the state of my thesis, we would talk about how the structure of academia is failing students and how frustrating it is to try to empower and advocate for students at a granular level and at a system level and be designing and executing a course (if not multiple) all at the same time. We both wanted students to be given opportunities to succeed. We both acknowledged that there are too many barriers (how many truly phenomenal engineers is the world missing out on because a kid that needs a different type of support is left to fend for themselves in college, or high school, or middle school?). We started to diverge when it came to the mechanics of the solution--how exactly were we going to set students up for success? How could we set our communities up for success? And those divergences were a direct result of us living vastly different lives prior to meeting one another. I wouldn't want to live his life and he wouldn't want to live mine, even if we came to similar conclusions.
It never occurred to me that he, as my mentor, thought less of me because of my gender or race or age. Or worse, that he thought I stood out from the groups I identify with/belong to, that someone I was not like other girls/Black people/millennials. The topics also never came up.
But, he was a mentor. I valued his academic views. If he had made a comment about my settling down and giving up my dream job to be married and have kids, would that have cheapened his praise or his talking about supporting students? My guess is yes. Even rolling the idea around in my head sours my mood.
How does that souring, in the face of such surety, translate to other relationships, those you don't have to participate in against your will? If I was given a choice to only keep close relations with people who recognize me fully, would I? Probably. That'd be really comfortable. But I don't imagine I'd give up all forms of relationships with people who don't recognize me. A part of me says that to give up all uncomfortable relations is to let my own ability to recognize others atrophy.
Yeah, I don’t think we should never have relationships that fall short of full recognition. I just think friendship is probably not possible in that context, even if something slightly less or other than friendship is. (It sounds like you were friends with your mentor and like recognition was not a problem there!)
I wonder about the recognition slider on a friendship-proximity spectrum. If the more I feel recognized by another person, the more willing I become to label them as friend or close friend or best friend. I feel like it also has to be coupled with appropriate sincerity.
There’s plenty of people that are capable of (and choose to) recognize me that I would never want to get coffee or dinner with. Sometimes it feels like there’s no sincerity behind “believe women!” or “black lives matter”. The whole “are you more progressive leaning because you want to dunk on conservatives or because you can actually experience compassion for your fellow man?” and “are you more concerned with doing good or with other people thinking you’re good?”
Does recognition imply sincerity?! Like…someone who is all talk doesn’t really recognize me rather than sincerity being its own element. Am I allowed to let recognition be an element all by itself and not try and define something as ineffable as friendship or what makes a friendship feasible or infeasible.
Much to chew on.
I tried. I’m pro Palestine and he claimed to be neutral, but he left me 3 times over my posts. But the worst was now the last time when he basically blamed me for what was happening in Amsterdam last week, and he said he hated me. He knew when he started pursuing me, yet he chose to continue with the relationship and break my heart.
I think it’s possible, but like you said you need to communicate properly with the other person. And you both need to be on the same level.
oof, i’m so sorry :/ this is brutal
You are right. Such a person cannot be your friend. I also think that such a person is at least a political enemy if not a personal one. We are not honor bound to debate every person who debases us directly, but we do have to — as you just have — publicly condemn their assertions of our and others’ inhumanity.
Last paragraph slaps
I think your line in the sand— that a person who doesn’t not recognize your personhood will not be invited into your private space— is a clear and good one. I think, though, where it gets murkier is what to do with all those “intellectually evil” interactions that abound in our peripheral spaces— at the office, online, or at Thanksgiving with extended family. When is it necessary to maintain civility, or even helpful to engage in dialogue? Versus when is it appropriate (or even feasible) to have no contact? I’m not talking about our deepest friendships here, moreso the cordial relationships of convenience which make up the fabric of everyday life. I DO NOT KNOW the answer but one person I will be looking to is Esther Perel. I expect she will be facilitating a lot of interesting discussions around how to navigate politics within relationship
Not a response to the question in hand but curious if you think there are “ideas” that are simply not worth engaging with, or, to what extent is an idea too far-fetched/stupid/outrageously wrong or facile to give serious thought? Mostly I’m thinking of mis/disinformation, a recent example of which is the, god-bless, some populations in some community eat pets…
This is a good question and I certainly think there are. There are probably even ideas I feel aren’t stupid but I feel I’ve engaged with so much in the past but I’m now over them, or my mind is now basically settled. And of course there are also ideas I do find too dumb to bother with. For reasons of diplomacy, I will not say which ones here!