by A few days ago, Steve Smith posted a comment, “Wrong-headed Friends,” in which he described a couple of his friendships maintained across today’s cultural divide. I hope that this blog will help to generate the sorts of friendships that Steve Smith describes. But I fear that the intensity of moral commitments around at least two current cultural issues make such friendships very difficult. Those on the right find it difficult to have close friendships with those who support the right to kill unborn human beings. Those on the left find it difficult to have friendships with those who want to reserve marriage for opposite sex couples. This difficulty may be because concern for the goodness of the friend is a central component of friendship (certainly the classic notion of friendship). Real friendship will drive us to discuss difficult, uncomfortable, unpleasant, irresolvable (?) moral issues with a friend. But I think that real friendship also includes the ability to relax with the friend–to share unguarded thoughts. It is difficult to combine these two aspects of friendship across today’s cultural divide. Another problem: Given the divided nature of our culture, many people who voted for Obama don’t even know any people who voted for McCain and vice versa. Maybe it takes someone with the charm, commitment, and good will of Steve Smith to have such friendships.
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Yes, this is a difficult and complicated problem. Imagine that you lived in Nazi Germany. Would it be appropriate, if you happened to have the opportunity, to be chummy with people who supported genocide? “Sure, we disagree on the appropriateness of exterminating millions of Jews, but that’s no reason why we shouldn’t be friends.” The attitude seems appalling, not admirable. At one time I imagine that religious differences seemed like this to some people, and the issues Bob mentions can evoke similar attitudes today. People on the other side of one of these divides can seem cold-hearted or downright evil, and in defending their “wrong-headed” views they are likely to say things that seem from the opposing perspective not merely wrong but ludicrous, self-serving and disingenuous. Such differences, as they become more manifest, can definitely put a strain on relationships.
At the same time, I’m sure that it is possible to have friendships among people who disagree on these matters. As they say, “I’ve seen it done.” And it also seems to me quite urgent to make an effort to keep ties intact: otherwise there is, I think, a real danger of cultural breakdown. This seems to me to be a very live worry.
But how to do it? It’s a complicated question. For now, I have a couple of (probably platitudinous) observations. First, it’s good to recall that everyone is fallible. So not only should I remember that I might be wrong, and thus should be a little less overbearing in my positions than I might be inclined to be; but I can recognize that there may be excuses for what I remain convinced are wrong and even iniquitous positions in other people. With respect to abortion, for example, I think it’s possible to believe both a) that abortion is the taking of a human life, and that the social phenomenon of widespread abortion is in one sense equivalent to a kind of contemporary holocaust and b) that it is understandable and even excusable– forgivable, maybe– that many people fail to grasp this truth. So I can acknowledge that someone is a good person– more admirable and virtuous in most respects than I am– even though he or she supports what I regard as a grave moral evil. (In this respect, abortion seems to me quite different than some other moral atrocities involving visible victims who were obviously human persons.)
My other observation, which applies more at the political level, is that we ought to be slow to bring controversial issues under the heading of “principle,” or “rights,” and be more willing to respect the methods of institutional and pragmatic accommodation. Benjamin Kaplan’s history of the emergence of religious toleration shows how much was accomplished through pragmatic “arrangements” rather than through the embrace of theories or principles. I’ve been listening to the Lincoln-Douglas debates lately, and I think these also show vividly how someone like Lincoln could be committed to a fundamental moral principle and yet acknowledge the need for pragmatic and institutional compromises. My own view is that the courts have done great damage to the social fabric by purporting to resolve so many controversial matters under the heading of (ostensible) principles. And I think we– we legal scholars, for example– need to look for ways to escape from “principled” (or “rights”-oriented) approaches that may lead to escalating cultural warfare.
For myself this is a much more fundamental thing. I believe most people treat friendship as something “bestowed”, perhaps as a gift, or perhaps for those not capable or actualized by the giving, a bargain.
To give, or to advantageously exchange with “the enemy” is to empower your foe. This is why Christians often (I think some groups still do this) have something called the “Blue Pages” which are phone books of “Christian” (by whatever definition) businesses. We’ve got to keep that cash in the Kingdom!
Back to my original point. It seems a predictable thing that one wouldn’t want to invest what is limited friendship-time and energy in something distasteful.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” — Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Unfortunately most to not yet see his wisdom.
Bob, very thought provoking post. I find myself in a very strange and difficult world: if my friends at work knew what I really think about some of these bitterly divisive issues, they would think me a Nazi; and if my friends at Church knew what I think about them, they too would think me a Nazi.
Maybe this means I’m a sellout on both counts. But I’ve come to be convinced that part of the problem is what both sides expect the law to be able to accomplish. Steve Smith: I don’t think it’s appropriate to use words like “holocaust” for abortion in the U.S. because the government isn’t rounding people up and causing them to have abortions against their wills. Most of my friends who support abortion “rights” have never had an abortion. Rather than arguing ad nauseum with them about what the U.S. Constitution — a document that for all its merits is but a speck on the history of the Kingdom of God — should or shouldn’t allow, I’d rather try to sit at table with them and incarnate Jesus in whatever small way I can.
I’d say the same about my gay friends and the question of gay marriage. How has it come to the point where we equate the ontological status of marriage with what the law in the U.S. or Europe says? We live in the Roman Empire, not the Heavenly City.
Yes, we should seek the peace of this city, and yes, we should advocate for civil law that reflects the good and just ordering of society. Certainly we wouldn’t be law teachers if we didn’t think this is so. But so long as we allow the difference between “us” and “them” to consist in what we think the civil law of this city should allow, so long as this sort of difference of opinion drives in any way our willingness to sit at table with “sinners,” IMHO, we are utterly missing the point of God’s mission in this world.
Thanks for all of the thoughtful posts. I agree with most of what has been said. Here are a few further thoughts on David Opderbeck’s post. First, if you are hesitant to let your “friends” at work and Church know what you think about these issues, are they really friends? Again, it seems to me that a real friend is one with whom you can share your unguarded thoughts.
Regarding the moral component of friendship, Robert Bellah and his colleagues in “Habits of the Heart” (one of the best books ever written) (3rd ed. p. 115) are very helpful. They describe the differences between the traditional and the modern understanding of friendship. The traditional idea of friendship includes the notion that friends will “enjoy one another’s company” and that they will “share a common commitment to the good. Today we tend to define friendship most in terms of the first component: friends are those we take pleasure in being with… [Shared commitment to the good] seems to us quite extraneous to the idea of friendship…. For Aristotle and his successors, it was precisely the moral component of friendship that made it the indispensable basis of a good society. For it is one of the main duties of friends to help one another to be better persons: one must hold up a standard for one’s friend and be able to count on a true friend to do likewise. Traditionally, the opposite of a friend is a flatterer, who tells one what one wants to hear and fails to tell one the truth.”
As for the modern abortion regime, it is like the Holocaust in that it yields the death of so many innocents. David Opderbeck is correct that it is different from the Holocaust in that it is not imposed by government, at least in the United States. The modern abortion regime is in some respects more like slavery—the government supporting and enabling the private abuse of innocents. Neither is a very attractive analogy.
As for gay marriage, like most family-related issues, I think the key question is what will be best in the long run for children. In my view, reasonable arguments can be made on either side. These days, that view alone can exclude one from the friend-lists of some folks on both sides of the issue.
Bob, in an ideal world, I’d have many of the kinds of “friends” Bellah refers to. In the real world I inhabit, I have to feed my children (work) and minister with and to people who are good and decent but simply not prepared to treat most controversial questions with any intellectual nuance (church). So flying under the radar sometimes is a helpful survival strategy.
I agree that slavery is a better metaphor for abortion. Even here, the metaphor breaks down. I think that from a scientific perspective, there are some moral ambiguities about very early term abortions that aren’t present at all with respect to “race” (which is a thoroughly unscientific category). To be clear, I think early term abortions should not be legal, but the moral reasoning here, which relies on potentiality and the precautionary principle, requires some finesse, IMHO. Also, the historical moment is different. Thank God, the country is not on the brink of a civil war, and personally I don’t think we should desire such an outcome. I’m reluctant to employ a metaphor that could justify such thoughts of physical violence.