© 2025 by Sterling Harwood, J.D., Ph.D.
“The wicked have only accomplices, the voluptuous have only companions in debauchery; self-seekers have only associates; politicians have only their factions; the generality of idle men has only connections; princes have only courtiers; virtuous men alone possess friends.” ~ Voltaire, The Philosophical Dictionary,
https://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volfrien.html , last visited May 26, 2025.
Voltaire certainly makes several good distinctions above, and he makes friendship sound so virtuous, how could I reasonably disagree with the likes of Voltaire? One of the nicer features of Philosophy, however, is its insistence that even the best philosophers –or philosophes, if you prefer that label for Voltaire – can and do make mistakes. Voltaire himself rightly poked fun at the great philosopher Leibniz by using the character Dr. Pangloss, who glossed over all the world’s ills with the motto and implication of his philosophy of religion that we live in the best of all possible worlds. After all, in traditional Western thought of Leibniz’s day and beyond, God is the perfect father who created the world and God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect – a loving God. Millions proclaim: “Jesus, he’s my friend” and “You’ve got a friend in Jesus.”
What could possibly go wrong with this sunny picture? First up is Butch Hancock, who said: “I learned two things in Lubbock, Texas. First, that God loves us. And second, that we’re all going to burn in hell forever.” Millions or even billions fear God and even point to their fear as a source of pride: “I’m a God-fearing Christian.” I ask: “Is it consistent to fear the perfect man?” Why wouldn’t you trust the perfect man, who is your friend, to be at least fair and in all likelihood merciful and forgiving. Allowing or even causing the teeming billions of the Lord’s creations and friends to burn in hell forever surely seems strictly out of bounds.
This is a version of the so-called problem of evil. Theodicy is the field devoted to explaining away the problem of evil. One way is to say we are just in a test and those who pass the test get to go to heaven instead of roasting forever in hell. Why an omniscient being like God needs a test to get results is left unexplained? Some suggest free will is involved, specifically, that God loves us so much that he gave us a fair opportunity to earn a ticket to hell, and without warning us in the clearest of terms possible for an omnipotent being that such a fate awaits many or even almost all of us.
But let’s bring things back to earth. Next up in our list of witnesses is Jennifer Willoughby. She describes her experience, which I find eminently believable. Believe the women, some urge. So, let us at least try to do so. Here’s her story in a moving nutshell, the nub of her gist.
“[H]e could be kind and sensitive. And so I stayed. He cried and apologized. And so I stayed. He offered to get help and even went to a few counseling sessions and therapy groups. And so I stayed. He belittled my intelligence and destroyed my confidence. And so I stayed. I felt ashamed and trapped. And so I stayed. Friends and clergy didn’t believe me. And so I stayed. I was pregnant. And so I stayed. I lost the pregnancy and became depressed. And so I stayed.” ~ Jennifer Willoughby, speaking of her allegedly abusive husband Rob Porter (Republican, Mormon, Harvard University, B.A., J.D., New College, Oxford: Oxford University, M.Phil.), appearance on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC, February 8, 2018.
Friendships often end badly or become exploitative. To exploit someone is to take unfair advantage of their predicament, to give a rough and ready, short and snappy, down and dirty first approximation of a definition of exploitation. Consult your experience and ask yourself, seriously ask yourself as Philosophy demands, if Willoughby’s experience resonates with you as believable, and if her experience has parallels or analogies with some friendships you have experienced. Talk amongst yourselves while I move on, since I’m scarcely done.
One might object to my damn, fool questions and examples by insisting that friendship involves loyalty and what could possibly be wrong with that, especially in the world we live in now chock full of porn websites and dating websites urging us to explore alternatives rather than loyally hang around with the person who happens to be your romantic friend at the moment. As Stephen Stills sang, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with.” And websites make push-button easy to get together. It’s just lunch? But is the service arranging lunch with someone of your designated range of ages, interests, locations, etc. really just lunch or is it a portal to another friendship or at least to an experiment in friendship or trying to make friends.
Dale Carnegie earned some wealth showing us in a book how to win friends and influence people. Well, surely any prize you win in the great capitalist countries of the world at least must be worthwhile. So, friendship must be worthwhile, especially since it involves a good measure of loyalty.
But the above is a procedural argument. We’re following capitalist procedures to win friends and spawn loyalty. We are allowed, however, to look at results rather than just have tunnel vision about procedure. We need simply ask a few pointed questions about loyalty to see that loyalty is not all it is cracked up to be. Millions were loyal to Hitler. Hundreds or even thousands were and are loyal to the worst gangsters. Hundreds of millions are loyal to questionable, to say the least, politicians such as LBJ, Nixon, or Trump. Is such loyalty and friendship really so good that it is beyond serious question? Very well, what about the loyalty and friendships in religious cults? Consider Jim Jones’ Jonestown, David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas (have you noticed that we keep coming back to Texas?), Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate cult in the suburbs of San Diego. OK, we keep coming back to California, too. The problem of overestimating the value of friendship, as if it is scarcely a double-edged sword, is bi-coastal, and bipartisan, since it is found in red and blue states alike.
And then there step forward the enablers. Many friends, out of friendship or even love, enable their closest friends or relatives to stay addicted to dangerous substances, all too often leading to death. Suicide among the young is at an all-time high in America. Guns are the leading cause of death among children. Relying on mere friendship to get us out of this mess is, as a piece of friendly advice from me to you, naïvely and overly optimistic in a way that brings us right back to the critical thinking of Voltaire’s Candide. Discuss all this with your friends.
———————————————————————————————————————————
