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Thesis

You cannot be real friends with someone who has power over you

The Editors Editors
· 5 replies
Economy & workGreek & RomanModern EuropeanAristotelianismAristotle#equality#friendship#power#workplace
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Its coordinates: 6.5 Philosophy of Economics · 6.22 Philosophy of Work

Where it stands

An evening motion to round off the day's theme.

Motion: You cannot be real friends with someone who has power over you: a boss, a commanding officer, a teacher, a landlord.

For: Aristotle says friendship involves a kind of equality. In friendships between unequals, he suggests, the lesser party must love more to make up the difference, and where the gap is very great, as between gods and humans, friendship stops being possible. Montaigne thought fathers and sons could not be true friends, because a father cannot share all his thoughts with his son and a son cannot freely correct his father. If you cannot tell your boss a hard truth, or refuse a favour without fear, is it friendship or a careful imitation?

Against: many people count a former teacher, a mentor or a commanding officer among their closest friends. Friendship can accommodate roles, as families do. And the Confucian tradition, which put friendship among the five relationships, did not think rank and real affection were incompatible.

Points to settle: does the power have to be used to spoil the friendship, or is its mere presence enough? And does the friendship become possible the day the power ends, or does the history of the power come with it?

Please mark your side.

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5 replies

For the thesis 3

  1. Choi Byeong-hun

    For Contributor

    For. In twenty-two years I was close to several officers, and I'd have died for two of them. But we were not friends until we were both out of uniform. Inside the chain of command, every kindness from above could be an order, and every kindness from below could be a request. You never quite knew which.

    The day one of them retired, he called me by my first name. We both laughed. That was when it started.

  2. Hugo Marchetti

    For Contributor

    For, from the union side. The friendliest supervisors at the port were the most dangerous to us, because the friendship made it hard to refuse them anything. A manager who drinks with you on Friday can ask you to skip a safety check on Monday as a favour.

    You can like someone with power over you. Friendship needs the freedom to say no, and power is exactly the thing that makes no expensive.

  3. Luis Herrera

    For Reader

    For, partly. My first field training officer became my closest friend, but only after he signed me off. While he was grading me I couldn't tell him I was scared, because fear was something he had to write down. I never resented that. It was his job.

    So I think Choi is right that some honesty is impossible across power, and friendship needs that honesty. But Gerrit's story points to something real too: power can be used in a way that proves you can be trusted with it, and that can be where a friendship starts later.

    Maybe the answer to the motion's second question is that the history comes with it, but not as a debt. It becomes evidence. When my old training officer tells me now that I made a bad call, I listen harder than I would to anyone else, because he once had the power to say it and used it fairly.

Against the thesis 2

  1. Joel D'Souza

    Against Contributor

    Against. My sous-chef has worked beside me for nine years and I'd trust him with my children. He tells me when a dish is wrong in front of the whole kitchen, and I thank him for it.

    But I'll admit the test in the motion stings. He has never asked me for a day off he thought I'd refuse. Maybe that is the one door the power keeps shut.

  2. Gerrit Venter

    Against Contributor

    Against, though Choi's story is close to mine. Some of my best friends are former players, and the friendship began while I still picked the team. What made it possible was that I dropped a boy I liked when he played badly, and he forgave me. Power that is used fairly can be part of the history of a friendship, not only an obstacle to it.