“Finally, he ends by adjusting the quote attributed to Aristotle so that it refers to “my democratic friends.” But, at this point in the book, I could barely keep pace; I felt incapable of fully grasping the meaning of the words, and what they might have meant thirty years ago. My mind drifted toward more banal thoughts, such as whether modern politics is suspicious or unaccommodating of friendship, of the commitment to strangers that we assume as citizens. And then I thought about all the intimacies, shared over cigarettes and alcohol, on the edge of a tomb, which I had once tried to forget. Wounds of a different sort, the ecstasy of having once felt known.” ~ Hua Hsu “The Politics of Friendship” #Bookstr
Aristotle is next to me. #bookstr
“By the time that he delivered his lectures on friendship, Derrida had become entranced with a line attributed to Aristotle, o philoi, oudeis philos. The line is often translated as, “O my friends, there is no friend”—a strange sentiment, at once an acknowledgment and a negation. Some speculate that Aristotle was expressing something simpler, closer to “He who has many friends, has no friend.” But Derrida was drawn to the seeming contradiction in the version he favored. He thought that figuring out what Aristotle meant could point us toward a future of new alliances and possibilities.” What Jacques Derrida Understood About Friendship https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/what-jacques-derrida-understood-about-friendship
Discussion
No replies yet.