Epictetus on Friendship 8

. . . But examine, not what other men examine, if they are born of the same parents and brought up together, and under the same teacher; but examine this only, wherein they place their interest, whether in externals or in the will.

If in externals, do not name them friends, no more than name them trustworthy or constant, or brave or free: do not name them even men, if you have any judgment.

For that is not a principle of human nature which makes them bite one another, and abuse one another, and occupy deserted places or public places, as if they were mountains, and in the courts of justice display the acts of robbers; nor yet that which makes them intemperate and adulterers and corrupters, nor that which makes them do whatever else men do against one another through this one opinion only, that of placing themselves and their interests in the things which are not within the power of their will.

But if you hear that in truth these men think the good to be only there, where will is, and where there is a right use of appearances, no longer trouble yourself whether they are father or son, or brothers, or have associated a long time and are companions, but when you have ascertained this only, confidently declare that they are friends, as you declare that they are faithful, that they are just.

For where else is friendship than where there is fidelity, and modesty, where there is a communion of honest things and of nothing else?. . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

I recall a very brief period in my childhood when my teachers told that we should always look past accidental differences, and consider the essential unity of the human condition. It did not matter, I was told, if I was black or white, man or woman, old or young, rich or poor. I was, at heart, a human being. That was what mattered.

My romanticism will often bleed into an embarrassing sentimentality, so you will forgive me when I fondly remember watching one of those old film reels in the third grade, the kind it took the teacher half an hour to set up, where the picture wobbled and the rattle of the projector was louder than the actual audio track. It was of the classic “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. Even at that tender age, I was very deeply moved to be told that what mattered was not the color of my skin, but the content of my character.

But as the years passed, and I passed into higher education, I experienced something different. I began to see that model of the essential divided and fractured. I saw an ever-increasing separation of race, gender, creed, and class. It once again seemed to be all about black versus white, man versus woman, the old versus the young, the rich versus the poor. I was once shouted down in a graduate class by a peer who insisted I had no right to speak about justice because I was a white male. There was an eerie silence when I said I thought that interesting, since a hundred years ago someone may have said that I had no right to speak about justice because I was black female.

Will I choose to define myself by the good of my will, or by my external conditions? The good man and the bad man hardly differ because of their lineage, upbringing, or social circles. The good man and the bad differ only in what they truly love. Understand that only someone who cares first for his character, and not for his position, can ever truly be a friend.

Written on 2/2002

Image: Hermann Kern, "Good Friends" (1904)