Searching for Homo sapiens sapiens amicus
Many concepts, commonly used in everyday language, are kind of sophisticated in every sense of the word. But, if we think about them more profoundly, we most certainly find various nuances that either surprise us or keep us contemplating about the meaning and the purpose of the very word we are analyzing. Friendship is one of them. If we analyze the trivial meaning of friendship, we discover that it is a kind of a relationship necessary for human development and the development of society that we are living in. But, in terms of honesty, we suddenly falter. Is friendship just an urge—an impulse buried deep within us that makes us cooperate with each other in order to enable our genetic information to survive—or is there a higher purpose—something that gives friendship its own “true” meaning?
According to the basic definition of the word “friendship”, it is a way of belonging—an intimacy between two or more people that undoubtedly shapes who we are as people and brings demands of moral values into our lives as well as mutual benefits for all participants. Friendship is supposed to give us pleasure embodied in a person, whose character we find appealing; and enables us to develop both socially and psychologically. It literally “makes us feel alive” by intensifying our commitment to certain activities and thus makes us happier. Moreover, it promotes our self-esteem, which is beneficial not only for ourselves, but in some way also for our environment.
However, friendship is in some way fungible and venal. The more we think about that fact, the more it loses its value. Maybe we feel affection to our friends and there is some kind of altruism within us, but deep in our souls we are selfish. We care only for our own welfare and the very concept of friendship is just a way to promote our own value. The reason for this is suggestibility— disability to harmonize our moral values and affections for a person with general public opinion. We are willing to betray our friends because we are afraid to stand against a big crowd. Our friends are valuable only in times of virtue and grace, but we are unable to support them when things go wrong. We act like friends, but behind their back we stab them with a knife, without acknowledging the fact that the wound made by a friend hurts thousand times more than the one made by an enemy.
And thus, if we study friendship from the evolutionary point of view, we may also find various opposing facts. It can be written in our nucleobase that we should be selfish, for it is the purpose of our existence to seek benefits for ourselves. There is; however, reciprocity as well. We do actually cooperate with each other, for it is also a way to survive. But, we cannot really say that such cooperation can be classified as true friendship in the true meaning of the word.
Therefore, it is questionable whether a friendship can or cannot be true. Many people, including Greek philosophers, and present-day anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists, tried to find a solution. The answer probably is that both nature and nurture have its share in influencing this phenomenon and the truthfulness of friendship strongly depends on individuals which are forming it.
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