1 - Friendship from Identity

Summary

In Aristotle’s Politics, friendly passion is an identification stemming from anger and self-assertion: the zero-sum competition for honors could become win-win only among civic friends. The liberal solution to the problem, found in Madison’s Federalist 10, was to “extend the sphere” and multiply “the interests,” transforming identity groups into interest groups: a win-win economic competition. This solution was so successful that subsequent theorists forgot about the underlying anger and self-assertion. For example, we live today with the terrible effects of political theorists’ endorsement of identity politics, starting with Charles Taylor’s misreading of Hegel’s “Lordship and Bondage,” which blinded a generation of theorists. Seeking a healthier identity in vocations, rather than race or culture, might solve the conundrum of our desiring both equality and superiority. To excel at a vocation is to achieve a superiority that generates a new form of equality: reciprocity. In reciprocal exchange, what I am good at is balanced by what you are good at. Civic friendship is a humane way of returning to this liberal solution without forgetting the inhumane passions on which it is based.