Friends of Pleasure
The term “friend with benefits” might come to mind when we see Aristotle use the phrase “friendship of pleasure.” Interpreting Aristotle in this modern way, however, would be inaccurate and an oversimplification of what he meant. He used the term “pleasure” to refer to any activity that causes enjoyment. Pleasurable activities, both romantic and platonic, form the basis upon which many of our relationships are made. Most meaningful relationships begin as friendships of pleasure.
Let us compare “pleasure,” a synonym for enjoyment in Aristotle’s thesaurus, to the philosophy of dating websites. Behind every successful dating website is a complex web of algorithms that determines compatibility based on the hobbies and interests of each member. A “match” is made based on shared activities that are enjoyable for both parties. The first date normally includes one of these common activities. Matched couples will go bowling, hiking, or simply meet over coffee.
People feel more comfortable spending time with a stranger when there is a shared activity. Consider planning a first date or a party: The itinerary normally revolves around an action. The simple acts of getting together for coffee, a meal, or a beer fall under this category. Most actions done in a group have a similar goal: enjoyment. Groups form when multiple people receive enjoyment from the same activity.
These groups can be a powerful source of identity. Students sign up for clubs, intramural sports teams, or service fraternities because they know that the club will plan activities. Coworkers will join volleyball leagues or prayer groups. The club exists to help the members come together.
Often all is well within the group until the members run out of things to do. Problems are prone to arise in a group when the shared activity reaches completion or is removed. Players on a pickup basketball team return to their respective apartments after the final buzzer. Parties are broken up and groups disband when the keg runs dry. In general, friendships of pleasure can easily lapse into confusion in the absence of a shared activity. Friends must start another activity if they want to stay together without things becoming awkward.
One community in particular comes to mind when we talk about shared actions among young adults: the gathering of friends for the sake of drinking (a.k.a., a party). In conversations among young adults on a Friday afternoon, the question “What are we doing tonight?” is the anthem of the weekend. Drinking alcohol is a shared activity around which many students and young adults gather because the convivial effects are conducive to pleasure. The ritual of the weekend begins with purchasing alcohol, continues at a party, and ends when the alcohol runs out.
Yet, the simple goal of pleasure can easily be abused when a deeper goal is absent. Friends become pleasure-seekers, focusing only on the enjoyable effects of the alcohol. They support one another in this quest for pleasure. It is no wonder that this pleasure can quickly turn into drunkenness; drunkenness results from our unquenchable thirst for pleasure. Drunkenness results from our unquenchable thirst for pleasure.
One way to deter someone from seeking a certain type of pleasure is by presenting other, more pleasurable experiences. For example, we may avoid drinking to the point of drunkenness if we want to avoid a hangover. We may abstain from overeating because we do not want to feel sick. That said, the desire to enjoy physical health, while it might be successful in deterring some from drunkenness, is not in itself sufficient for everyone — for some, getting drunk becomes the only goal worth striving for.
As noted above, gathering for the sake of a pleasurable activity has limitations. These limitations can be summed up in the thought of social justice advocate and renowned spiritual writer Jean Vanier. Vanier founded L’Arche, a faith-based community in which individuals with mental/physical disabilities live together with individuals without mental/physical disabilities. He contrasts two different groups that may form when people gather: collaboration and communion.7
According to Vanier, collaboration means “working together for a common goal.” Think about the common goals that are shared at the gatherings you attend. These goals can be constructive, such as working together, learning together, serving at a food pantry, or cheering on a sports team. Or they can be destructive, like a violent mob trying to attack a target. In both cases, Vanier would say that the downside of collaboration lies in the fact that we can gather without “really caring for each other or being bonded together in love.”8 According to his definition, even a constructive gathering can share a set of nondestructive goals that are not rooted in love.
The language that Vanier uses to define collaboration is identical to the language that we have used thus far to define a friendship of pleasure. The relationship is uncanny. With this in mind, we can confidently say that a friendship of pleasure is the result of collaboration. A common goal is shared: the pleasure itself.
We can readily observe the logic of collaboration in our relationships. Gatherings can be as innocent as a crowd at a basketball game or a potluck shared at an apartment. The common goals are entertainment, or laughter and happiness. But we also see parties where binge drinking is encouraged. We hear about riots that break out at the end of sporting events, resulting in injury and property damage. In these cases, the common goal, originally a positive thing, has become destructive. At the end of each collaboration we are left to decide whether the goal is achieved through constructive or destructive means. Collaboration allows for both construction and destruction.
Vanier is keenly aware of the dangers associated with these meetings of pleasure (collaborations). In response, he proposes a second type of gathering. This proposal is not altogether different from the first one. Rather, it is a transformation of what we have defined as “collaboration.” This transformation takes and rearranges the elements of collaborations with a greater purpose in mind. Most important, it avoids the potentially destructive results of pleasure.
This second type of gathering is a community, drawn from the root word “communion.” A community, in its truest sense, is an interconnected and interdependent network of individual communions. Each person shares a particular bond with the others, which, as a result, strengthens and supports the entire group. Vanier explains, “Communion is bonding, caring, and sharing which flows and find its fulfillment in celebration.” Friends who enter into a communion care deeply about fulfillment and celebration (Chapter 4). They care more about their friends’ searches for fulfillment than their own selfish searches for pleasure. They put their friends’ needs before their own needs.
This bit of wisdom from Vanier has set the stage for Aristotle’s third type of friendship. Vanier, like Aristotle, knows that each type of gathering can be transformed into something greater. Both realize that humans can move beyond mere usefulness or pleasure into a communion of true love. According to Aristotle, the bond of this communion is not usefulness or pleasure. It is virtue.
Friends of Virtue
On a rainy afternoon in Belfast, Ireland, two religious leaders met for a drink at a local coffee shop. Clad in their respective religious garb, they received questioning glances from onlookers who raised eyebrows and peered over their cups of coffee. For the citizens of Belfast, this was an unusual sight.
That day, Reverend Steve Stockman, a Methodist pastor, and Father Martin Magill, a Catholic priest, shared what would be a life-changing cup of coffee.9 The two men met, as representatives of their respective traditions, to engage in an important dialogue. The purpose of their dialogue was clear: to address the hatred that was plaguing their city. The cultural atmosphere was as dense as the air outside; deep religious tensions between the Catholic Church and Protestant churches still existed in their country.
Reverend Steve and Father Martin set out to clear the air. They desired communion.
Their journey began with a shared interest in reconciliation and the hopes that it could turn into concrete action. Amazingly, their hopes morphed, took shape,