Friendship

 A true friend is someone you know what to expect of. You know your friendship will endure no matter what happens.

 This article covers a topic that has been discussed by many philosophers. Aristotle, Descartes and David Hume are some of the most famous philosophers who worked to explore how people relate to each other as friends.

 Your best friend can sometimes be more important than your family. Colleagues and club members often become best friends. If people in a group are working well together, they are probably friends. Still, you have friends who do not belong to any of the groups you belong to. People are sometimes willing to die for their friends.

Aristotle divided friendships into three different categories:

 1. Useful Friends (= Friends of utility)

 2. Amusing Friends (= Friends of Fun)

 3. Lasting Friends (= True friends)

 A Friend of utility is your friend because you can use him one way or another. People in a group are often friends of utility. Many friendships exist only because somebody wants to take advantage of the acquaintance. But such career friends" are rarely really liked. Their mere existence questions the value of friendship and might lead one to wonder if friendship really exists.

 Amusing Friends are friends you enjoy having fun with. It may be a friend you go out and have a drink with or someone who tells you lot’s of jokes. People like to hang around persons who spread funny stories and jokes. But that has very little to do with true friendship.

 Aristotle pointed out that true friendship lasts. When it lasts, it does so because the friends are decent beings who respect each other and like each other as they are. Aristotle emphasized in particular that such friendship lasts, while the other kinds of friendship only exist for a short while and is also very capricious.

 Every individual is basically the same good-natured being at all times. If you like that individual the way he/she basically is, then your friendship will endure. However, if you like someone because he/she is funny or useful, there is no reason to continue to stay friends with him/her anymore once the fun or use ends. Aristotle's analysis of friendship works as well today as in ancient Greece.

 All human relationships work better when based in true friendship. One can become sexually aroused by someone, but that has very little to do with true friendship. To become worthwhile a marriage needs a foundation of true friendship.

 Of course you can have working relationships at your job, even without being true friends. But if you are true friends, things will work out just so much better. It is very possible to work together with others without true friendship. But the cooperation will work much better on a base of true friendship. A group without true friendship will easily turn bureaucratic. It becomes impersonal and cold, people are treated as packages. They must behave in a certain way towards each other, because they do not like each other the way they are. Real lasting friendship enhances the quality of life on all accounts. Perhaps the reason behind betrayals between friends and lonely individuals is just a lack of understanding of what friendship really is and how to cultivate it

 It has been said that accepting responsibility makes you lonesome. But a leader need not stand alone, if he does not fall into the trap of selecting only those that are useful as friends. If he instead seeks friends among those he can like the way they are, he does not need to be alone.

 The Code of Honour states that you should never betray the fidelity once promised. But what fidelity is most important? Is it the fidelity you swore an ideal or the allegiance given to individuals? Sometimes groups try to make you betray your friends for a "good cause". Maybe you get a hint that you can not continue associating with some of your friends, if you want to advance in the company. That is a really inappropriate way to interpret the Code of Honour. If an individual is one of your close friends, it is obviously more important to maintain that friendship than a “friendship with ideas” that requires you to break all ties with your real friends.

 Parents often worry that their children do not choose the right kind of friends. They do not want their children to get into bad company and may tell them to socialize with sons or daughters of parents who have high status in society. But it's the same as telling your children to only acquire friends of utility. Children need to learn by themselves who is a good or bad friend. We do not judge our own friends based on some quality control to see if they deserve to be our friends. Instead, it is better to realize that we all deserve to be loved for what we basically are. It's a matter of learning to know each other as we basically are. True friendship is something very simple and natural. If people just took the time to learn to know each others true nature as the good beings they basically are, they would become friends with no effort.

 True friendship lasts. Maybe the most painful thing that can happen to you is if someone, who you thought was a true friend, turns out to be very unfriendly and do something that you would never expect a true friend to do. A really true friend is someone you know how he/she is. You can usually predict how a true friend will act in different situations. You know that the friendship will last no matter what happens. Religious or political beliefs do not matter, because true friendship is way above such things.

 Actually, true friendship is total understanding and therefore a spiritual quality. True friendship only exists between living beings and is thus beyond such things as family, group, society, economy, politics, space and time, ideas and thoughts. Your true beingness is ultimate truth. If you can learn to fully know yourself, you will find ultimate truth. Then you can be free to be yourself and a true friend to others. True friendship exists between beings who are alive and who know each other as they basically are and disregard appearances or body qualities. True friendship demands that you care about the other person's inner qualities and is achieved only if one is willing to allow others to come close to you and also dare move close to others. You must also be willing to allow others to find out who you really are. When you confront learning to know someone else as he/she is deep down inside, you are confronted with much truth. Thus you need high confront on truth to acquire true friends.

 True friendship is a spiritual quality. To make it possible for true friendship to exist in present time, it needs "something" to incarnate into. When two (or more) individuals are true friends, it means they are forming a spiritual communion that exists beyond space and time. This community can manifest itself in the space/time, where individuals have created something they can coexist in. The existence (beingness) they create together is closer to their true selves (basic personality) than most other identities and continua. That's why you get closer to your true self, the more true friends you have.

 Friendship also concerns empathy. If you can share another person's feelings and thoughts you can be his true friend, but that does not imply that you have to agree with the person. If you only share thoughts and feelings with him/her you can become true friends.

 A person who hides his feelings and thoughts and pretends to be something else than what he really is, prevents others from becoming his true friends. You feel disappointed if you discover that someone was not the friend you thought, or was not able to deliver what he promised.

Know Yourself

  People who are unwilling to show themselves as they basically are can not get true friends. Probably they do so because they believe that no one would like them if they got to know them. They do not understand themselves and they do not like what they see in themselves. Therefore, they believe that others would think badly of them if they could get to know them. If they could learn to understand their true motives and their own true nature, they could enjoy themselves and get out of the trap. Then they would be able to acquire true friends and they could be true friends.

 To have the same ideas does not necessarily mean that you become true friends and it isn’t necessarily so that you become friends just because you have a common enemy. True friendship goes much deeper and is much finer than ideas and common enemies.

 "Friendships" based on common ideas and interests are unstable and very risky. When such friendships cease because the agreements no longer exist, it can turn into hatred or open hostility. This is especially true when ideas are considered more important than individuals and beings. There is a scarcity of true friends in our world, but each one of us can think up hundreds of ideas and thoughts any time. Thus you should care more about true friendship and not worry so much about ideals or ideas.

 If you read history you can see that fanatical cults and cult movements often get the idea that ideas are more important than friends. They believe they can afford to sacrifice their friends for the good cause. They believe that "the end justifies the means" and understand that "it is OK to commit harmful acts against other people" to promote "the cause".

 You can discuss how to protect yourselves, so that you don’t become fanatical and begin to sacrifice your fellows and friends for a sacred cow. If we care about (empathy) our fellow human beings and believe that individuals are more important than ideas and cults, the risk is not so great. If you improve your judgment by loving wisdom and truth it will be difficult to make you commit such deadly sins against your friends.

 To show empathy for your fellow human beings is perhaps the most important thing on earth. In any case, it is extremely rewarding for those who care for people and for those who receive care and consideration. Both are growing stronger as beings while approaching the truth. If kindness and friendship were considered of greater importance in our world, life would become more inclusive. It would create conditions for more peace, more unity and better quality of life. What has led us astray is that we have allowed ideologies and untested theories to become more important than individuals and the people affected by them. We must not forget that the ideologies and theories are there to serve the individual and not the other way around.

 A very important lesson everyone needs to learn about friendship, is that the most faithful and most stable friend you have is yourself. It is a true friend who will never abandon you. The most important thing when building true friendship is to "know yourself" (this was written in bold letters over the entrance to the "Oracle at Delphi" in ancient Greece, along with “nothing in excess”). When receiving or delivering meditation (by our Modern Socratic Method) on "The Road to Truth" that is what you do - Learning to know yourself/your true self. So let us become true friends.

Todde

Also check:

http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2015/04/true-friendship-philosophy-freedom.html

 Modern Western Philosophy on Friendship at: www.duga.se (use google translate)

Environmental problems of China

 It's amazing what a troubled Chinese mother can accomplish. Documentaries can change the world, but then they have to deal with the realities of today, and not about the times in the past when the West was the source and solution for everything. A film that has the right focus is Chai Jing's "Under the Dome". It has been widely accepted. Within 48 hours after it’s release online it had 200 million visitors. This means that one in three Chinese netizens saw it before censorship started to remove the film on March 6th. The film can still be seen on YouTube (which is blocked in China). Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM

 "Under the Dome" is a project of one woman, Chai Jing, a former investigative journalist with the state-television CCTV. It starts with her telling how her daughter developed a tumor even before she was born. The daughter survived the surgery but grows up in a bell jar. Each day begins with checking the smog report. The smog determines if the daughter may go out. Out: face mask. Inside: cover cracks and ledges with tape. She was filming an operation of a cancer woman with black lungs, even though she never smoked. Six year olds who have never seen blue sky. She makes up for with a widespread myth that you can make children immune to smog. "China burn 3-4 times more fuel than Europe ... China burns more coal than the rest of the world!"

 She travels to Los Angeles and London and show how they solved their smog problems. She reveals how smog comes from subsidized steel mills, oil monopolies that sabotage environmental regulations and a corrupt society. Beijing was once the capital of bicycles. It probably had the world's largest traffic system of bike paths, but these have nowadays been converted to parking places to benefit the automotive industry. The film is partly problematic (Chai Jing sees oil, natural gas and as the solution and ignores the problems caused by the one party state).

 But the main message arrives: "It's not that I'm not afraid to die. But I do not want to live like this" said Chai Jing in a quote that has become viral.

 The Problem for the world of today is not that the United States built it’s society on cheap oil, private cars and houses far from citycenters. It is that China’s urbanization right now follows that model. China has more than 100 cities with over one million inhabitants. It is far more than the total population of the USA. Shanghai has three times more inhabitants than New York and more environmental impact per person. To be over clear: The focus should be on the Chinese society and its urban planning. Chai Jing makes a call in the film to the people of China to turn things around and engage in environmental protection, and hundreds of millions have listened.

Link (Sorry it seems the English subtitles are sometimes removed - If so you can search on Youtube for Chai Jing "Under the Dome" and maybe you can find the film with English subtiteles - It is one hour and 43 minutes long = 103 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM

 It seems as it works on firefox (English subtitles) better than on Chrome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM 

 Quotes from the life of Socrates

1) The curse of the person who thinks clearly: Believing that others will arrive at the same insights if they study the same facts.
2) - (from Platos dialogue "Gorgias"): Speach influences the soul in the same way as drugs affect the body.
3) - (from Plato's dialogue "Phaedrus"): Wisdom is wealth. Do we need something beyond it, Phaedrus: It is sufficient at least for me.
4) - (Plato's dialogue from "Republic") Luxury and Indolenceare are the children of Wealth.
5) Bettany Hughes on Socrates: He was the first man of irony. Many were upset by this.
6) Bettany about Athens of Socrates time: It was the first time in history when freedom of speach (Greek: parrhesia) was permitted. The Greek word actually means: the ability to speak frankly (= to speak their minds bluntly).
7) Bettany on Athenian slaves: It was necessary that these people remained disenfranchised. It was their muscles and sweat that created the wealth of the city of Athene. When Socrates suggested that all people, regardless of background, by themselves should have equal opportunities for personal freedom, it was a very uncomfortable proposition. It was the Athenian slaves who produced the silver coins that were spent on Athens' markets. It was the miserable lifes of the slaves, which gave free citizens and even such men as Socrates the opportunity to have free speach dialogues.
8) Bettany on Socrates: Socrates actions were embarrassing to those who ruled this money-hungry city, because he was so remarkably uninterested in material things. The thing that had made Athens rich the preceding centuries was the silver mines of Attica. At 400 years B. C. 20,000 slaves walked each day to work underground  to unearth the silver-rich ore. By the mid 400s Athens could boast of having liquid assets in the form of silver to the value of 6000 talents (equivalent in today's money $ 65 millions). In this materialistic city Socrates preached that it was more important to cultivate spiritual than material wealth. He walked around barefoot in thin clothing. Year around, he wore the same sort of shabby clothes of wool.
9) From a comedy: That dog Socrates! How dare he speak? He who owns only a single garment for protection against the weather, whether it is summer or winter!
10) Socrates (from Platos "Apology"): The only thing I try to persuade you, young and old, to do is to not bother about growing your ego or your possessions, but that you instead work on perfecting your souls. I'm trying to get you to realize that virtue does not arise out of wealth, but it's out of virtue that wealth and everything else that is valuable in life is created.
11) Xenophon (from "Remeberances of Socrates"): He always took good care of his body and he never praised those who did not.
12) Socrates realized that the society was necessary for the philosopher. He was convinced that it was impossible to be wise on your own. The more  thirst for knowledge an individual has, the more important it is that he participates in the social life. Stupidity is evil. Knowledge is virtue. Knowledge can be acquired only by those who engage in the human world, despite all its ugliness.
13) Most people seem to know that above the entry to the Oracle of Delphi it is written: "Know yourself", but only a few know that there is also the text "Nothing must go to extremes" (Nothing in Excess).
 For the Greeks, this meant that they should not exaggerate their ego. But Socrates interpreted it to mean "you should learn to control your mind, thus learning to control the minds of others". Or "Know yourself by studying the minds of others."
14) (Faidon 66c-d): Wars, revolutions and conflicts take place for one reason only and that is the desires of our  bodies. All wars are started to conquer wealth or assets. The body is the only reason that makes us desire wealth. We are enslaved by the desires of our bodies.
15) Socrates kept out of politics for most of his life. But in the year 406 B.C. he was elected as the leader of a court that accused some generals for not taking care of their dead comrades' bodies at a naval battle (which they won) against a Spartan naval force. There had been a storm and therefore very difficult to recover the bodies.
 The Athenians had changed the law to make it possible to punish the generals. The law was changed so that all the generals could be prosecuted as a group. This new law was against the existing law. The old law clearly said that each individual should be prosecuted separately. As leader of the court Socrates refused to accept this violation of law, despite the demands of the mob.
 Socrates got the jury to agree that the trial should be stopped and the generals prosecuted each one separately. When the individual indictments later were made, it was not Socrates who led the trials. All six generals were sentenced to death and executed.
16) Xenophon (from "Hellenica"): Homo sapiens loves the  anonymity of the masses. Civilization's darkest moments occur when people wants scapegoats. They will direct their accusing fingers against anyone, as long as it's not being pointed at them. Unleashed envy is history's worst curse.
17) Bettany: A little more than six years later, the same sort of anonymous mass proved that not even a freely speaking philosopher like Socrates could manage to change their behavior, even though he spoke so convincingly to them. If a mob, a jury or an all-powerful democracy happen to wish to get rid of somebody, whether truth stood by their side or not, it was always in their power to do so.

 I sure do like this man (Socrates). Probably both Plato and Xenophon do present him as a slightly better man than he was. But I can not help but like the stories of Socrates conveyed by them.

 One thing that was a real eyeopener to me is that I have now realized that the democracy of ancient Athens was much more warlike than I had imagined. The Athenian decision-making assembly decided very often (in their arrogance) to declare war against one citystate after another. During the Peloponnesian wars they came to grips with Sparta and things went from bad to worse.
 Athens' democratic Assembly declared to theGovernment of island of Melos (416 BC, before the conquest, with consequent slaughter) when the Athenians were preparing to take over the island's Mines and Resources: We believe that this law applies to the Gods. We know that it applies to humans. This natural law says that anyone who can rule does so. It is not we who invented this law and we are not the first to make use of it. We know that the law has existed since time immemorial. We know that it will continue to exist in perpetuity for those who come after us. The only thing we do is that we use this law. We are well aware that you yourselves or any other power that be, would do exactly the same thing, if you or they had the same opportunities as we do.

 Bettany on Socrates: He (Socrates) did not fit into any political mainstream. He carried no political campaigns. He was never willing to sacrifice his life for the idea of ​​democracy (although he fought as a soldier in Athenian armies).  When some of his disciples establishes themselves among the thirty tyrants of Athens (404-403 BC) he never tried to use them to get into any position of power. Instead, he kept his calm in the mids of chaos, when most around him were loosing their heads, abandoning their principles and many even died. He just continued to spend his time with the young, who are his disciples, to debate the nature of friendship and what to expect of the future.

 In Platos "apology" Socrates says: My disciples likes to challenge people and then tries to imitate me. Then I think they notice that there is a lot of people who think they know something, when in fact they almost do not know anything at all. That is why those questioned by my disciples become angry with me and not the disciples. They believe that a certain Socrates pollutes our land, corrupting the youth. But if someone asks them what I've done and what I have taught, that upsets them, they prefer to avoid the truth that they pretend to be knowing when in fact they do not know anything.

 Socrates (from Platos "Apology"): The thirty ordered me (and four others) (threathening to kill us) to kill Leon of Salamis. I then made it quite clear to them, not with words but through actions that I did not care so much about whether I live or die, but that I really did care very much to act in a virtuous way. So despite their threats, I refused to act unjustly.
 Bettany: Socrates never gave in to the threats of the tyrants. He did not not totally turn against them. He did not bother to flee from them along with the Democrats. He just continued to do what he always had done, whether it was war or peace, whether there was rampant illnesses or during sieges. He remained in Athens and walked the streets, asking questions, and communicating.

 Socrates motto was: A life without contemplation is not worth living.

 I changed my mind most of all about Socrates hometown (Athens), when I read "The Hemlock Cup". I learned that  the city of Athens when Socrates was born, had about 200 000 inhabitants (that I already knew) and that the number of inhabitants fell sharply in Socrates lifetime to about 60 000. The reason was that a wast amount of the male inhabitants died in wars (both against the Persians and against Sparta). The disease (some sort of plague) that hit Athens when the city was besieged (by Sparta) took many lives. Socrates lived in the middle of Athens' most difficult times.

Todde

Also check: http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2015/06/socrates-gossip-filter-gossip-slander.html - about his "Gossip filter"

and: http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2016/03/about-socrates-and-his-attitude-to.html  - about his regard of women.

 If you do think clearly, Why not check the modern Swedish use of the Socratic Method (dialctic) at:

https://www.duga.se/ - Use google translate