On Friendship

Bump into F. who is organizing a conference on friendship. Comments on how issue of friendship often framed by question of similarity & difference. Is the friend like or unlike; is the friendship based on the perception of resemblance or of difference.

2 things:

1. If we do think of friendship in terms of likeness, then isn't it often the case that I am friends with x not so much because she is like or unlike me, but because when with her I am unlike myself. I am translated out of myself, in this way, only with this person.

2. There is a presupposition that the basic units are two individuals, and that friendship is a relation between these two pre-existing individuals. But isn't a friendship rather a composition. Our commitment to the friendship is a commitment to the unity of this composition. The subject of the friendship, its 'we', is a third supernumerary 'we'.

Or, friendship as a line between two points, but the points are just the places the line ends; it does not 'join' the two ends.

Example. My frienship with G. This friendship has a code. It is not the code of friendship but only of this friendship. It is neither mine nor his, but composed only in and by the friendship - the creature of the friendship. This code is formed by the peculiar configuation of G. and I. (The code is the subject-language of the friendship).

This is why we often form friendships with people apparently 'unlike' us (or why the question of likeness/ unlikeness is not primary): because of the peculiarity of the composition. The elements of the composition are 'unlike' judged simply on the axis of resemblance, but as elements of a composition there is no problem.

Friendship:

M Foucault: Let us speak about friends, then, but I will not speakto you of friends as such. I belong perhaps to a rather old-fashioned generation for whom friendship is something at oncecapital and superstitious. And I confess that I always have some difficulty in completely superimposing or integrating relationships of friendship with organizations, political groups, schools of thought,or academic circles. Friendship for me is a kind of a secret Freemasonry, but with some visible points. You spoke of Deleuze who is clearly someone of great importance for me. I consider him to bethe greatest current French philosopher.

[will update this]