I hope it won't be another couple of years! You made a lot of excellent points in your original essay and reply to my comment, and I'm glad you took the time to expand on them further here.
Also and especially: For one thing, friendship, unlike the other loves, does not subsist on or even tolerate inequality. Where friendship exists, exploitation cannot prosper, and if it does prosper, it is the friendship that dies.
So good, and so true. Realizing this is the antidote to a lot of unhealthy and damaging relationships that take the guise of friendship, or perhaps even really were friendship at one time, but have now become codependent or otherwise toxic relationships.
Although, to play devil's advocate (even though "devil's advocate" is exactly the opposite of the term I want in this case!), what about Christ telling His disciples that he no longer called them servants, but friends? There's a definite inequality there that can't be reconciled...
But then, there's also no exploitation. Plus the context is that of Christ raising His disciples to a position of greater blessing and spiritual understanding than they've ever had before, so perhaps that's the more telling point. Maybe the key to whether a relationship that is unequal in some ways is friendship or not is whether that relationship involves the greater / stronger party relating to the lesser / weaker in a way that is supportive and affirming and meant to make them more equal, rather than condescending or belittling them.
Which, on reflection, is kind of what Costis does for Kamet as well...
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Also and especially: For one thing, friendship, unlike the other loves, does not subsist on or even tolerate inequality. Where friendship exists, exploitation cannot prosper, and if it does prosper, it is the friendship that dies.
So good, and so true. Realizing this is the antidote to a lot of unhealthy and damaging relationships that take the guise of friendship, or perhaps even really were friendship at one time, but have now become codependent or otherwise toxic relationships.
Although, to play devil's advocate (even though "devil's advocate" is exactly the opposite of the term I want in this case!), what about Christ telling His disciples that he no longer called them servants, but friends? There's a definite inequality there that can't be reconciled...
But then, there's also no exploitation. Plus the context is that of Christ raising His disciples to a position of greater blessing and spiritual understanding than they've ever had before, so perhaps that's the more telling point. Maybe the key to whether a relationship that is unequal in some ways is friendship or not is whether that relationship involves the greater / stronger party relating to the lesser / weaker in a way that is supportive and affirming and meant to make them more equal, rather than condescending or belittling them.
Which, on reflection, is kind of what Costis does for Kamet as well...