1000 word - Written Review Sociology subject PART 2 - Essay Example

She prophetically prefaces her article with the questions “What is the use of friendships in our lives?” and “What does it gives us?” hinting at the thrust of her entire article. She outlines in this article the gains that friendship can offer a person in terms of moral growth by taking advantage of the vicarious experience that the other person can give when she trustfully shares not only her life experiences but how such life experiences impact on her. In suggesting this approach, Friedman relegates friendship to a motive-based venture which purports to offer commitment to gain trust from the other for the end purpose of using that person’s experiences for ‘self-advancement.

’ Consistently employing only the feminine pronouns through her article, Friedman properly characterizes friendship as a relationship based on approximate equality. She explains that approximate equality does not refer to values that are quantifiable like similarity in age or educational attainment but rather on personalities, attitudes and the like. Since there will always be inequality in certain respects, friendship must involve a balancing act to arrive at the ‘approximate equality’ status.

The balancing involves finding aspects or traits in the other which can fill the gap left by the superiority of a party in one aspect, otherwise a mentor-student kind of relationship, rather than a genuine friendship will ensue. For example, if one of the parties to a friendship is economically superior to the other, this must be balanced by a trait or character which the other has comparative superiority like a higher educational attainment. Another important characteristic of friendship, according to Friedman, is commitment.

Commitment is not based on some abstract standard but must be person-based. A connection must be established with the person and that person’s peculiar needs, wants, attitude and personality. Friedman states that commitment consists of the